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A high-powered attorney who has represented the likes of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and John Gotti Jr. has taken on the case of a disgraced doctor facing murder charges for walking a woman without a terminal illness through her nitrogen gas suicide in a New York motel room.
Stephen P. Miller of Tucson, Arizona, 85, is charged with second-degree manslaughter in the death of Doreen Brodhead, according to an indictment from the Ulster County District Attorney’s Office. He also faces two counts of assault, according to the document.
Cleaning staff found 59-year-old Brodhead dead in a Kingston Super 8 Motel on Nov. 9, 2023, the office wrote in a press release. Miller traveled from his home in Tucson to meet with Brodhead and assist her in taking her own life with a plastic hood and nitrogen gas.
Miller turned himself in to the Kingston Police Department on Feb. 2, according to the agency. The Ulster County District Attorney’s Office wrote that he pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released after posting a $1 million bond.
Lichtman said that although the Ulster County woman was not diagnosed with a terminal illness, she suffered from chronic pain. He refuted claims from a source close to the court case who told Fox News Digital that mental illness may have played a factor in Brodhead’s final decision.
“There was never a hint that Brodhead was suffering from mental illness,” Lichtman insisted. “If she was, surely it would have been brought up at the bail hearing by the prosecutor. It wasn’t. Zero evidence.”
Lichtman also said that Miller’s family, rather than the Choice and Dignity group, is funding his legal representation.
“We see Steve’s volunteering, as a compassionate presence for people who do not wish to die alone, as a noble undertaking.”
Miller’s prosecution comes as Canada, which has some of the most liberal laws worldwide concerning physician suicide, delayed its plans to allow the mentally ill to opt into their programs last month, citing an insufficient number of psychiatrists for pre-death evaluations.
The country introduced medically assisted death following a 2015 decision by its Supreme Court that requiring people to cope with intolerable suffering infringed on their fundamental rights of liberty and security. In 2021, the law was expanded to include those experiencing “grievous and irremediable” conditions like depression and other mental health issues in 2021.
Previously, Southern California primary care doctor Jeff Barke described the growing Right to Die movement as a “terrible advancement” for society in an interview with Fox News Digital:
“To legislate and consecrate the idea that we purposefully expedite their death, to me, is not what medicine is all about, not what our healing profession is about and is emblematic of what’s going on in our society in all aspects,” Barke said.
“I think it’s a terrible advancement that states are legislating the rights and the power of a physician to act God-like and create and expedite a patient’s death,” Barke said.
Conversely, Choice and Dignity wrote in a statement on its website that it “deserves a death as free of pain and suffering as possible.”
“Every individual should have control over the care they are given at the end of life, including the right to end medical treatments when they no longer add to the quality of life,” the nonprofit said. “Choice and Dignity helps our members to have that control and tries to advocate for those rights.”
