Final Exit Network: Difference between revisions

Final Exit Network, Inc.

Predecessor	Hemlock Society
Formation	2004
Founder	Derek Humphry, Ted Goodwin, others
Tax ID no.	80-0119137
Legal status	Active
Headquarters	Tallahassee, Leon County, Florida
Website	finalexitnetwork.org

Final Exit Network, Inc. is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization which serves as a resource to individuals seeking information and emotional support in committing suicide as a means to end suffering from terminal illnesses as well as chronically painful and or debilitating, though not necessarily terminal, illnesses.^[1]

The organization was founded in 2004 by members of the Hemlock Society, including that organization's founder, Derek Humphry. It was named after Humphry’s 1991 book of the same name. It is a member of the World Federation of Right-to-Die Societies.^[2]

The organization has occasionally been the subject of controversy.^[3] In 2015, co-founder and former president Thomas "Ted" Goodwin, testifying in a criminal trial against the organization, stated that volunteer "exit guides" instruct individuals in how to obtain equipment for ending their lives and instructing them how to use it, but neither supply or procure the equipment. Goodwin stated that exit guides are present during suicides (officially called either "self-deliverances" or “hastenings”), but, while they are typically present when the client begins the process through his or her death, they do not physically assist them. Goodwin admitted they “pushed the envelope”, but were careful to stay within the law “...as we knew it”.^[4]

After unsuccessful efforts by the states of Arizona^[5] and Georgia^[6] to prosecute Final Exit Network and or its members, in 2015 the state of Minnesota obtained the first felony conviction against the organization for assisting in the suicide of 57-year-old Doreen Dunn.^[7]

In May 2012,, Final Exit Network was indicted^[8] of assisting in the May 30, 2007 suicide of Doreen Nan Dunn (née Gunderson; born May 6, 1950^[9]) of Apple Valley, Minnesota. Four members: Dr. Lawrence Deems Egbert, Ted Goodwin, then-case coordinator Roberta Massey, and Jerry Dincin (Goodwin's successor as president) were also charged individually in the 17-count indictment, which included felony counts of assisting in a suicide and gross misdemeanors of interfering with a death scene.

According to the state, Doreen Dunn's husband, Mark Dunn, returned home to find his wife dead on the sofa.^[10] An autopsy concluded that Dunn died of coronary artery disease and noted that she had suffered from chronic pain since 1996. It did not attribute her death to suicide.^[11]

On May 25, 2009, Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) arrested Final Exit Network members Ted Goodwin and Claire Blehr in a "sting" operation. Dr. Lawrence Deems Egbert (then the organization's medical director) and regional coordinator Nicholas Alec Sheridan were arrested in Baltimore, Maryland.^[12] Georgia authorities contacted Minnesota authorities to share evidence that Doreen Dunn had applied for Final Exit Network services.^[13]

District Court Judge Karen Asphaug dismissed charges against Ted Goodwin on March 22, 2013 on grounds that the state law prohibiting “advising” a suicide is unconstitutional because the language is too broad; she also dismissed a charge of interfering with a death scene.^[14] Jerry Dincin died of prostate cancer four days later.^[15] On the eve of trial in 2015, the state filed a motion to sever Lawrence Egbert's trial from that of Final Exit Network, Inc. He was granted immunity over his objection.^[10]

Egbert testified that he and Jerry Dincin had gone to Dunn's home to be present with her as she terminated her life via helium asphyxiation, and then removed the asphyxiation equipment in order to make it appear as if Dunn had died of natural causes per her request. Final Exit Network’s attorney, Robert Rivas, acknowledged that Egbert and Dincin were in Dunn's presence when she died, but he asserted that the state (represented by prosecutor Phil Prokopowicz) had no proof that the men assisted in her death.

Although there was a Minnesota statute in effect at the time of Dunn’s death which prohibited “advising, encouraging, or assisting” in a "suicide"^[16], the state Court of Appeals found the statute to be unconstitutional—in part for violating the defendants' First Amendment-protected right to freedom of speech. The court ruled that the statute's prohibitions against advising and encouraging a suicide had to be stricken, but it allowed the state to prosecute Final Exit Network for assisting in a suicide.^[17] In an unrelated case before the trial, the Supreme Court of Minnesota ruled that "speech" can constitute "assisting" suicide if the message gives specific instructions on how to carry it out.^[18]

On May 14, 2015, a jury convicted Final Exit Network Inc. of assisting Doreen Dunn’s suicide and interfering with the death scene. It marked the first felony conviction against the organization for assisting a suicide. It was fined $30,000 by Judge Christian Wilton on the charge of assisting in a suicide and was required to pay $3,000 in restitution to Dunn's family for funeral expenses.^[19]

Lawrence Egbert died June 9, 2016.^[20]

Jana Van Voorhis was an Arizona woman with a history of mental illness whose suicide was allegedly assisted by the Final Exit Network in 2007^[21] after she lied to them about suffering from cancer.^[22] Two members of the Final Exit Network were charged with aiding in a suicide (which is considered manslaughter under Arizona law) and conspiracy to commit manslaughter. Two others were charged only with conspiracy.^{[citation needed]}

Two of the defendants, Wye Hale-Rowe and Roberta Massey, both elderly and in poor health, each pleaded guilty to one minor charge (not a felony, and not "assisting" in a "suicide") in plea bargains that ensured they would not run any risk of being sentenced to a prison term.^[23] The trial of the other two began on April 4, 2011. After a two-week trial, Final Exit Network's medical director, Dr. Lawrence Egbert, was found not guilty by an eight-member jury.^[24]

The jury was unable to reach a verdict on the case against a volunteer Exit Guide, Franklin Langsner. Before his retrial, scheduled for August 4, 2011, the State offered him a plea bargain "he could not refuse," he said. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to one year on probation, following which his record would be expunged.^[24]

Thus the State was unable to secure any conviction by a jury, and nobody from Final Exit Network pleaded guilty to assisting in a suicide, or to any felony charge.^[24]

On February 25, 2009, four members of the Final Exit Network were arrested on charges of assisting the suicide of a cancer patient, John Celmer, of Cumming, Georgia. Those arrested were Ted Goodwin, Claire Blehr, Dr. Lawrence Egbert, and Nicholas Alec Sheridan.^[25] They and the organization were also indicted on a charge of racketeering. On April 1, 2010, the five defendants pleaded not guilty.^[26]

The defendants moved to dismiss the indictment on grounds that the Georgia statute on aiding in a suicide was facially unconstitutional under the First Amendment.^[27] In early 2011, the trial court judge entered an order denying the defendants' motion to dismiss the indictment.^[28] The judge entered an order authorizing the defendants to appeal this decision before trial and suspending the prosecution until the appeals court's ruling.^[28]

On February 6, 2012, the Supreme Court of Georgia unanimously found the Georgia statute against assisting in a suicide unconstitutional in violation of First Amendment free speech provisions, and struck down the statute in its entirety.^[29] All the charges against Goodwin, Blehr, Egbert, and Sheridan were therefore dismissed.^[30]

The organization and its activities were the subject of a November 13, 2017 episode of the public affairs series Frontline entitled "The Suicide Plan".^[31] It was written and directed by Miri Navasky and Karen O’Connor.

The Final Exit Network allowed the filmmakers to film part of a training session and actual suicides. It includes interviews with clients, exit guides, and both proponents and opponents of assisted suicide. Interviewees include organization founder Derek Humphry, Dr. Timothy E. Quill, and Barbara Coombs Lee of Compassion & Choices. It also features Bruce Brodigan of Massachusetts and Hunt Williams of Connecticut, two men who were charged with assisting in suicides. Brodigan assisted his father George's suicide; charges were later dismissed.^[32] He died on April 7, 2012 in Ogunquit, Maine after slipping on rocks and falling into the ocean.^[33] Williams assisted his friend John Welles to fatally shoot himself; he was sentenced to one year's probation and accelerated rehabilitation.^[34]

• Final Exit book by Derek Humphry
• Assisted Suicide
• California End of Life Option Act
• Compassion and Choices (Right-to-Die Organization)
• Death with Dignity National Center
• Dignity in Dying
• Dignitas
• Exit
• Hemlock Society
• World Federation of Right to Die Societies

• Official website
• Frontline: "The Suicide Plan" on YouTube