NEW YORK - Two-thirds of Americans believe there are circumstances in which a patient should be allowed to die, but they are closely divided on whether it should be legal for a doctor to help terminally ill patients end their own lives by prescribing fatal drugs, a new AP-Ipsos poll finds.

The results were released just days before Dr. Jack Kevorkian is to be freed from a Michigan prison after serving more than eight years for second-degree murder in the poisoning of a man with Lou Gehrig's disease.

Kevorkian's defiant assisted-suicide campaign, which he waged for years before his conviction, fueled nationwide debate about patients' right to die and the role that physicians should play.

Though demonized by his critics as a callous killer, Kevorkian - who is to be released Friday - maintains relatively strong public support. The AP-Ipsos poll found that 53 percent of those surveyed thought he should not have been jailed; 40 percent supported his imprisonment. The results were similar to an ABC News poll in 1999 that found 55 percent disagreeing with his conviction.

The new AP-Ipsos poll asked whether it should be legal for doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to help terminally ill patients end their own lives - a practice currently allowed in Oregon but in no other state. Forty-eight percent said it should be legal; 44 percent said it should be illegal.

More broadly, 68 percent said there were circumstances when a patient should be allowed to die, while 30 percent said doctors and nurses should always do everything possible to save the life of a patient.

A majority of respondents - 55 percent - said they would not consider ending their own lives if ill with a terminal disease. Thirty-five percent said they would consider it.

Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law took effect in 1997. Through last year, 292 people - mostly stricken with cancer - have died under its provisions, which allow terminally ill, mentally competent adults to administer life-ending medication prescribed by a physician.

Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands also authorize assistance by doctors in the deaths of patients.

The current battleground in the United States is in California, where a bill similar to Oregon's law is moving through the legislature.

The AP-Ipsos poll involved telephone interviews with 1,000 randomly chosen adults from May 22 to 24. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.