Former Prosecutor Reacts To Dr. Kevorkian's Death

DETROIT (WWJ) - The former Oakland County prosecutor who ultimately convicted Jack Kevorkian of murder said you've got to respect a man who is willing to jeopardize his freedom for a cause he believed in, but calls it ironic and hypocritical that he didn't end his own life as he ended the lives of many others.

David Gorcyca convicted Kevorkian of murder in the death of Thomas Youk, after a videotape of it was shown on "60 Minutes" on CBS.

Gorcyca says the last time he saw Kevorkian was at the premiere of the made for television movie, "You Don't Know Jack."

"We kind of were within feet of each other .., I  guess a professional acknowledgement ... we kind of nodded heads at one another, but no, I don't think he was really interested in talking to me .  And, I work in downtown Royal Oak and I've got a corner office & he would often walk by me, you know, pass my window feet away from me and it was kind of ironic to see him walking around town here," said Gorcyca.

Gorcyca says Kevorkian wanted to keep the issue of assisted suicide in the national spotlight, but he says the state legislature ultimately acted to make assisted suicide a felony.

"When I charged him, he crossed the line because it wasn't assisted suicide...it was actually active euthanasia or murder because it wasn't Youk who turned on the controlled substances or pulled the string that led to his death. It was actually Jack who provided the instrumentality and the means and in fact caused his death," said Gorcyca.

Gorcyca said Kevorkian begged and taunted him to prosecute him in that interview.

The Archdiocese of Detroit says in a statement that "the commentary on the death of Jack Kevorkian is the sobering and deadly legacy he leaves behind.  May God have mercy on his soul and on the scores of confused, conflicted, and, at times, clinically depressed victims he killed," says Communications Director Ned McGrath.