Also known as: selfslaughter · suicide
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A deliberate act by which a person ends his or her own life. The act supplies the factual predicate for privileges allowing reasonable force to prevent imminent self-harm and for criminal prohibitions on aiding or causing the death.
Selena Singh, delirious from medication, threatened to jump from a hospital window while muttering about ending her life. Nurse Santiago Sanchez locked the window and held the door to stop her. The intervention prevented the self-slaughter and exposed Sanchez to no liability.
Samuel Soto, terminally ill, asked physician Sofia Stern to prescribe lethal medication so he could commit self-slaughter. Stern refused, citing state law. The statute prohibiting such assistance was sustained against constitutional challenge.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Stephen Shaw attempted self-slaughter by arson and survived. Prosecutors sought capital punishment under a statute treating the act as murder. The Court invalidated the death sentence as disproportionate.
Sasha Stone told officers she wanted to commit self-slaughter and then confessed to a crime. The confession was later challenged as involuntary. The Court held that the suicide threat alone did not render the statement coerced.
Santiago Sanchez, suffering from mental disease, attempted self-slaughter by overdose. He was charged with related offenses and raised an insanity defense. The court applied the product test to determine whether the act resulted from the illness.
Sofia Stern sought public funding for treatment after a failed self-slaughter attempt. The program denied coverage for the procedure. The Court upheld the distinction between funding ordinary care and procedures linked to ending life.
Yes. The privilege permits reasonable force to prevent imminent self-harm when circumstances indicate an emergency, as shown by illustrations involving delirious threats and unconscious patients.
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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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A person who purposely aids or solicits another to commit suicide is guilty of a felony if the conduct causes the suicide or an attempted suicide.
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Yes. The emergency aid doctrine permits warrantless entry when officers reasonably believe a person inside faces imminent serious injury from self-harm.
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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…