California’s attorney general has sought an emergency ruling to allow the state’s right-to-die law to stay in effect, underscoring an urgent desire to defend a legal challenge to the law, and reassuring terminally ill patients who are considering using the legal option to end their lives.
By submitting the request, the government lawyers are signaling to the court that they intend to be aggressive in pursuing a decision on the case.
The move late Monday came in response to a ruling issued by Riverside County Superior Court Judge Daniel A. Ottolia last Tuesday that the Legislature made a procedural misstep when it passed the historic law during a special session on healthcare.
“We are taking action today to reverse the trial court’s decision and keep the California End of Life Option Act in place during the appeals process,” said a California Department of Justice spokesperson.
State Attorney General Xavier Becerra was allowed five days to ask the judge to suspend his judgment while the state appeals the case. The state DOJ asked the appeals court to quickly reverse the Superior Court’s order, rather than proceed with the ordinary appeals process — and, in the meantime, stay the ruling.
“Qualified terminally ill patients who seek the options afforded by the Act may die an excruciating, painful death before this Court will be able to grant them effective relief under the normal appellate process,” according to the attorney general’s appeal.
“Additionally, health care practitioners — who now may face the possibility of criminal prosecution for providing their qualified patients with information and assistance pursuant to the Act — have an immediate need for clarity about the state of the law,” it said.
The news was welcomed by Dr. Lonny Shavelson of the Berkeley-based practice Bay Area End of Life Options, who had faced the option of having to suspend or cancel a patient’s long-planned assisted death scheduled for Wednesday.
“This is a tremendous relief to me and those patients,” said Shavelson, a former emergency medicine physician who works with patients who cannot find a doctor to write a prescription to end their lives.
“We have a number of patients who are really upset and very close to death and opted to take aid in dying as a route of death, and were very concerned that they may not get the choice they wanted,” he said.
But opponents criticized the effort. “We are deeply troubled to see Attorney General Becerra, who is supposed to be responsible for upholding the rule of law and the state’s constitution, appeal the ruling of a Superior Court Judge that found California’s assisted suicide law was unconstitutionally passed by the Legislature,” said Matt Valliere, director of the New York-based Patients Rights Action Fund.
“We hope that this effort to appeal the ruling of Judge Ottolia fails so that people with terminal illness, disabilities, advanced age, and economic challenges will be liberated from this dangerous public policy,” he said.
The End-of-Life Option Act allows physicians to prescribe life-ending drugs to Californians diagnosed as having less than six months to live. At least 111 terminally ill people have used it to end their lives since the law took effect in 2016.
The ruling by Ottolia is narrow and technical, based on his finding of a procedural misstep: The law wasn’t enacted correctly. He didn’t find fault with the law itself.
The state Constitution requires legislators to stick to the topic and agenda of a special session. The law was passed in a special legislative session to fix health care funding for the poor – a gambit that allowed them to bypass opponents. Senate sponsors Bill Monning, D-Carmel, and Lois Wolk, D-Davis, defended the unusual strategy back then, saying time was of the essence.
Opponents disagreed, saying the special session was called to deal with a funding shortfall — to help the poor — and not for a vote on a controversial measure.
The case will be heard by a panel of three judges from the generally conservative Fourth District California Court of Appeal, Division Two, located in Riverside and governing Riverside, San Bernardino, and Inyo counties.
But the fight likely won’t stop there. One way or another, the law will end up at the state’s Supreme Court. If the courts strike down the law, proponents say they’ll take the campaign back to the Legislature – reopening a wrenching debate with testimonies from both the dying and the devout.
“Words cannot express the gratitude and relief that I feel thanks to this action by Attorney General Becerra,” said Matt Fairchild, a terminally ill 48-year-old retired Army staff sergeant in Burbank who advocated for the law.
“Knowing I still have the option of medical aid in dying if my suffering becomes intolerable brings me comfort,” he said, “because I will not have to endure a needlessly agonizing death.”
