Also known as: self murder · suicide · felo de se
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
The intentional act of causing one's own death.
Sydney Santos, delirious in a hospital room, threatened to jump from the window while muttering about ending her life. Nurse Sasha Stone locked the windows and doors to stop the attempt. Stone faced no liability for the restraint because the emergency privilege applied to prevent apparent self-murder.
Simon Stern, terminally ill, asked his doctor to prescribe medication to end his life. The state statute prohibited the prescription. The doctor refused, and the court upheld the ban because no constitutional right to self-murder assistance exists.
Washington has prohibited assisting suicide since its territorial days. In 1854, the first Territorial Legislature outlawed assisting another in the commission of self-murder. The current statute, Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060, provides that a person is guilty of promoting a suicide attempt when he knowingly causes or aids another person to attempt suicide, and classifies it as a class C felony punishable by up to five years imprisonment and a $10,000 fine. Washington's Natural Death Act, enacted in 1979, states that the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment at a patient's direction shall not constitute a suicide, but the state has consistently rejected efforts to legalize physician-assisted suicide, including a 1991 ballot initiative defeated by voters. The respondents in this case are four physicians who practice in Washington and treat terminally ill patients, three terminally ill patients who sought to end their lives with physician assistance and have since died, and Compassion in Dying, a nonprofit organization that counsels people considering physician-assisted suicide. The physicians declared that they would assist their patients in ending their lives if not for the assisted-suicide ban. Petitioners are the State of Washington and its Attorney General. In January 1994, the respondents filed this action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. They sought a declaration that Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060 is unconstitutional on its face and an injunction against its enforcement. The District Court held that the statute was unconstitutional. A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed that decision, but the full court sitting en banc reversed the panel and affirmed the District Court. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the case.
View caseSeth Shapiro told officers he wanted to end his life during a mental health crisis. Officers entered his home without a warrant after hearing a crash. The court admitted resulting evidence because the emergency aid doctrine justified the entry.
Samuel Soto was convicted of murdering a child. The state sought the death penalty. The court barred the sentence because the Eighth Amendment prohibits capital punishment for crimes not involving the victim's death.
Sierra Santos was sentenced to death for murder. She argued the punishment was arbitrary. The court struck down the sentence because the death penalty for murder, when imposed without sufficient standards, violates the Eighth Amendment.
Sierra Solutions employee Samuel Soto killed a coworker then attempted self-murder. At trial he raised an insanity defense. The court applied the product test and held that the homicide was the product of mental disease.
Yes. The privilege applies when circumstances reasonably indicate imminent self-harm, even without consent, as shown by illustrations of locking doors to stop a delirious suicide attempt.
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No. States may prohibit physician-assisted suicide because they have legitimate interests in preserving life and protecting vulnerable persons.
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Officers may enter when they reasonably believe a person inside faces imminent serious injury or death, based on an objective test of the circumstances such as a reported threat and sounds of distress.
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A suicide note may qualify as a statement against penal interest if the declarant is unavailable and the statement exposes the declarant to liability, though blame-shifting portions must be severed.
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…Oath was not uncontested even in Hippocrates' day; only the Pythagorean school of philosophers frowned upon the related act of suicide. Most Greek thinkers, on the other hand, commended abortion, at least prior to viability. See Plato, Republic, V, 461; Aristotle, Politics, VII, 1335b 25. For the Pythagoreans, however, it…