Euthanasia campaigner Dr Philip Nitschke today condemned a New Zealand court's decision to jail a woman for attempting to murder her terminally-ill mother.
Wanganui woman Lesley Martin was today sentenced to serve 15 months in prison.
Dr Nitschke, who attended the first half of the trial, said the decision was a damning indictment on New Zealand laws.
"I think it's disgraceful - what we see here is how inadequate the law is in New Zealand and Australia," he said. "We see a person who acted out of the highest motives of care and love, and the law doesn't distinguish that from a malicious act of calculated murder. The facts still are that if people didn't do what people like Lesley Martin did, we'd still have slavery and women wouldn't be able to vote."
Martin, 40, an intensive care nurse, was found guilty by a jury in the High Court at Wanganui, on the North Island's west coast, last month of attempting to murder her mother with a morphine overdose. The trial jury cleared her on a second charge of attempting to suffocate her mother with a pillow.
Martin, a euthanasia campaigner, was charged only after she published a frank book on her mother's death, To Die Like a Dog, in which she wrote that she twice tried to end the suffering of 69-year-old Joy Martin who suffered from terminal bowel cancer. A post-mortem found Mrs Martin died of respiratory arrest, possibly due to morphine poisoning or pneumonia.
Dr Nitschke said had the law been different, Mrs Martin would have got the death she wanted without having to sneak around.
"She (Lesley) is paying a price for something that should never attract a sentence," he said. "There needs to be laws that allow voluntary euthanasia in some legitimate way."
Dr Nitschke said he was surprised the jury found Martin guilty and felt the sentence was "very harsh".
"Anyone in that courtroom watching the account of what her mother went through could not fail to be moved," he said. Dr Nitschke said Martin had taken some consolation from the fact that her case would make it easier for euthanasia supporters to galvanise public support. He said it might prompt "recalcitrant politicians who sit on their hands" to do something.
Today's sentencing judge granted Martin leave to apply for home detention, in which she would serve her jail term at home.
Martin's lawyer said he would appeal the conviction and sentence.
Euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke is upset by a Federal Government plan to crackdown on euthanasia Internet sites and help lines. The proposed Telecommunications Offences Bill will make it illegal to provide information and counselling on assisted suicide. It also seeks to limit information on child pornography. Dr Nitschke says it will cause problems for euthanasia societies around the country and stifle debate on the issue. "The way its been drafted, it sets out to criminalize all manner of activities, every voluntary euthanasia society in Australia will have to be looking very closely at their Internet and their web content."
TANYA NOLAN: Euthanasia advocates in Australia are concerned about proposed new laws they say will stifle debate about the right to die. The Federal Attorney-General's Department has tabled legislation that would make it an offence to promote material on the Internet that assists someone in committing suicide. The law could impose fines of more than half a million dollars. As Anne Barker reports, euthanasia organisations are seeking legal advice to determine whether they could face prosecution if the Bill is passed.
ANNE BARKER: When 69-year-old Queenslander Nancy Crick committed suicide two years ago, she did it by taking a lethal cocktail of drugs that she was able to get hold of mostly over the Internet. But if draft legislation now before Federal Parliament had been in place back then, Nancy Crick might never have been able to kill herself the way she did, because it specifically prohibits the use of the Internet to transmit information intended to assist someone's suicide. The euthanasia advocate, Philip Nitschke, who was at Nancy Crick's side when she died, says others like her would be forced to take more desperate measures.
PHILIP NITSCHKE: It's impossible to provide that information and remain within the law with the current pieces of legislation that we're now… we're now flagging. So it would have made it impossible for her to get accurate information, and when people can't get answers to their questions, they increasingly resort to desperate things, and that's why the commonest method used by the elderly in this country to end their lives is by hanging themselves. The Federal Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill makes it an offence to use the Internet, email or other online service to transmit, publish or distribute material intended to promote suicide. And it prohibits even a possession of such material if it's to be used that way.
Dr Nitschke's organisation, Exit Australia, gives advice and information to others like Nancy Crick. And he says not only would such legislation shut down much of what he does, it could stifle the whole euthanasia debate in Australia.
PHILIP NITSCHKE: I think that there'll be a great deal apprehension on the part of the voluntary euthanasia societies across Australia, whose predominant role is to try and agitate for legal and law reform. They'll be feeling like their activities could well be under challenge, and they'll be having to seek legal opinion on this. But the biggest effect will be on the elderly people who simply want to come along and have correct answers given to their very concerning questions about what are their options now, given that the governments of this country have taken away their right or access to voluntary euthanasia legislation.
ANNE BARKER: But if your operations are actively assisting suicide, and that's illegal, why shouldn't you be stopped?
PHILIP NITSCHKE: Because people want the answers to their questions, and they want information now. To give people accurate information is not assisting their suicide, and this is where it becomes a very, very difficult question. I mean, if people are simply kept in the dark, and that's the effect of not answering peoples' questions and depriving them of answers to their questions, depriving them of information, they become increasingly desperate and desperate people do desperate things.
TANYA NOLAN: Euthanasia advocate, Dr Philip Nitschke.
And AM sought reaction from the Federal Attorney-General and other ministers, but none was prepared to comment.
NZ First MP Peter Brown wants to see voluntary euthanasia legalised but says he has no time for the plastic bags and "death machines" promoted by some advocates.
"It's just something we don't need in this society."
Mr Brown has announced his intention to resubmit a refined version of his Death with Dignity Bill after euthanasia campaigner Lesley Martin was found guilty last week of attempting to murder her terminally ill mother.
"It's an entitlement for people to die peacefully and with dignity," Mr Brown said. The bill, which would have allowed terminally ill people to seek help from medical professionals to end their lives, was narrowly defeated, 60 votes to 57, on its first reading in Parliament last year.
Mr Brown said he had received hundreds of letters and e-mails in support of voluntary euthanasia after the bill was rejected.
Martin's trial had persuaded him to resubmit it. But he distanced himself from Martin's pro-euthanasia group Exit New Zealand. Though he had worked closely with pro-voluntary euthanasia groups, he was not a member of any of them.
He was concerned Exit New Zealand was a "spin-off" of Exit Australia, whose founder Philip Nitschke, otherwise known as "Doctor Death", had demonstrated how people could kill themselves using plastic bags with drawstrings and machines that emitted lethal carbon monoxide gas.
"I don't disagree with Nitschke's request to change the laws but I don't want to be associated at all with those death machines," Mr Brown said.
The Martin trial has prompted other MPs to reconsider the issue. Labour MP Tim Barnett said a parliamentary group had met for the first time this week to discuss issues relating to "end-of-life" decisions, including voluntary euthanasia. Mr Barnett, who visited Martin in Wanganui during the trial, said her case had highlighted a "lack of clarity in the law" and the issue needed to be debated at parliamentary level.
"I think it's here to stay. I think Lesley's case has focused people's minds."
He said the group would consider the best way to move forward. He believed a new bill was needed. The group would wait till Martin's sentencing on April 30 before making any decisions, he said.
Lesley Martin's story was heard in court last month and will soon be performed before audiences, as a play. Martin's book, To Die Like A Dog, has been adapted into a script by Wanganui director and actress, Joan Street. The play was unable to be staged until after the completion of Martin's attempted murder trial. The trial finished at the end of March with Martin found guilty on one of the two charges she faced. She will appear for sentencing on April 30. The play will be presented on May 15 as a rehearsed reading, Mrs Street said today.
"The reading will constitute a world premiere of the play, something Lesley has always insisted upon," she said.
"Interest has been shown in the play by theatres overseas and also film companies."
The role of Lesley Martin will be played by Gaylene Kendrick and radio talkback host and Wanganui mayoral candidate Michael Laws will narrate. Mrs Street will play Joy Martin.
The production was turned down by both the organisers of the 2004 Wanganui Festival of the Arts and the board of the Repertory Theatre, due to the controversial subject matter.
Australian euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke yesterday said the mercy killing debate would be reignited by a jury's decision to find a fellow campaigner guilty of attempted murder. Leading New Zealand euthanasia campaigner Lesley Martin was today found guilty of attempting to murder her terminally ill mother by injecting her with 60 milligrams morphine. However, in the highly emotional case, Martin's lawyer said he would seek to have her discharged without conviction, even though the law allows for lengthy imprisonment.
The jury found the former nurse not guilty of a second charge of trying to suffocate her mother Joy Martin with a pillow in May 1999.
"It's bad news for Lesley, but what better way to highlight this issue," Nitschke told the Daily News tonight.
Nitschke - who heads the pro-euthanasia organisation Exit Australia - said he hoped that any sentence passed would reflect pressure from Martin supporters. He also hoped no conviction would be recorded.
"People identify with Lesley," said Nitschke, who supported Martin throughout her trial in New Zealand.
"She is everybody's sister, everybody's mother - people don't think she should be getting a 15-year jail term for what is basically love."
Nitschke said the trial highlighted the inadequacy of laws in New Zealand, and called on the Clark government to "stop sitting on their hands". He said Exit Australia would be rallying support for Martin and only a huge show of numbers could influence the policy-makers. He said the guilty verdict could motivate the levels of support needed. "If anything is going to do it is this," he said.
Although Martin had denied the charges, prosecutor Andrew Cameron said she could not claim she did not intend to kill her mother while also taking on the role of the "personal face" of the euthanasia campaign. An initial investigation into the death of Joy Martin was dropped due to inconclusive post-mortem reports. But criminal proceedings were revived three years later on publication of a book by Lesley Martin, called To Die Like a Dog, detailing how she tried to help her 69-year-old mother die. Martin campaigned extensively around New Zealand for the legalisation of euthanasia ahead of the trial, which comes less than a year after parliament narrowly rejected a Death With Dignity bill at its first reading.
"This is unjust," cried euthanasia advocate Lesley Martin after she was found guilty of attempting to murder her dying mother. And from the dock, she urged people to fight to change the law.
In dramatic scenes inside the High Court at Wanganui, Martin, 40, burst into tears and there were loud gasps after a jury found her guilty of one charge, using a morphine overdose on her mother, Joy, and not guilty of the second charge, attempted murder by suffocating her with a pillow. Friends and family members were distraught as Martin stood, face frozen, her hands clenching and unclenching. After the judge left the courtroom, Martin remained in the dock sobbing, embraced by her elder son, Matthew, 20.
"I'm proud of you," she told him, then called out: "Tell New Zealand to complain about this; this is unjust."
She said supporters should call the euthanasia group she founded, Exit NZ.
"This is people caught between legislation and love. There are so many people in the country in my position and I'm just trying everything I can to bring this to a head. The time has come to address this issue. People have to get off their bums and do something about this, otherwise more and more people are going to end up in my position."
The maximum penalty for attempted murder is 14 years. But in an unusual move, Martin's lawyer, Donald Stevens, requested that she not be immediately convicted, as she was unlikely to go to prison. Dr Stevens said he would apply for a discharge without conviction.
After consultation in chambers, Justice John Wild agreed not to record a conviction. He granted Martin bail, on condition she live at her New Plymouth home and not hold or apply for a passport, a continuation of previous bail conditions.
The jury took just under 5½ hours to reach its verdict after the 13-day trial. The verdict is a setback for euthanasia campaigners, who vowed to keep fighting to change the law to allow "mercy killings". Outside the court, Exit NZ committee member Bruce Corney said the trial was not about Joy Martin being the victim. "Lesley Martin's the victim," he said.
Joy Martin was diagnosed with rectal cancer in 1998. She was operated on in January 1999, suffered complications, nausea, and depression, and was found to have a cancerous tumour on her liver. She elected not to have treatment and to be nursed by her daughter, an experienced intensive care nurse, so she could die at home.
In her book, To Die Like a Dog, Lesley Martin described how her mother asked her: "Don't let me lie there, not alive and not dead… Please help me… Be quick."
In the book, written as a screenplay, Martin quotes herself as saying: "I'll know… I'll know when it's time… I won't leave you like that… I promise."
Hospice nurse Wiki Alward told the jury that Martin told her she gave her mother 60mg of morphine on the night of May 26-27, 1999. Mrs Alward said Martin told her the morphine was not because her mother had increased pain but because "my mum had indicated she didn't want a slow painful death, and I did not want that either".
The Crown alleged Martin had refused help to care for her mother, as she wanted to be alone to administer the morphine.
The defence said Martin was stressed, under "intolerable pressure" and exhausted because of a lack of back-up, and that her book could not be relied on for evidence. In his summing-up, Justice Wild said the case was an important one. The jury had to put their own views about euthanasia to one side. He said New Zealand had no defence of diminished responsibility.
After the verdict, he paid tribute to Martin, saying the dignified way she had conducted herself "reflects well upon you as a person".
Martin will be sentenced in Wanganui on April 30.
Australia's "Dr Death", Philip Nitschke, who gained notoriety in 1995 when he helped four terminally ill people commit suicide, called the court case "ridiculous", saying all it did was point to the "remarkable inadequacy of existing legislation". Dr Nitschke told the Herald that he was surprised by the guilty verdict but admitted the jury was "stuck between a rock and a hard place".
"I think it would be a difficult job for a jury and then for a judge to have to now try to work out some sort of penalty for something that really was a compassionate and loving act."
* Additional reporting: ALAN PERROTT, NATASHA HARRIS
The jury in the Lesley Martin trial has found her guilty of trying to murder her mother. The High Court at Wanganui heard the decision a few moments before five o'clock. The jury retired just after eleven this morning to consider whether Martin was guilty on two charges of attempting to murder her terminally ill mother. Martin was found guilty of attempting to murder her mother Joy with a morphine overdose. However, she was found not guilty on the second charge of trying to kill her with a pillow. Our reporter in court says there were emotional scenes in the court as the verdict was delivered. Lesley Martin gasped and clenched her fist, and looked very upset.
In summing up, Justice Wilde told the jury it may be feeling as if it has to decide the issue of voluntary euthanasia for the nation. He told the twelve jurors that laws regarding euthanasia should be decided by Parliament and not by them. Justice Wilde says the jury's task is to decide whether Lesley Martin had the intent to kill her mother. The jury returned to the courtroom earlier in the afternoon to ask whether Lesley Martin told police she had administered the 60 milligram dose in one lot or in several doses. Justice Wilde replied that she admitted in her formal police interview giving the dose all at once. Earlier he told the jury Joy Martin's doctor gave her daughter discretion over when to administer morphine, but not the amount.
The jury has also asked if Martin signed her police statement, to which the answer was no.
A New Zealand woman facing two attempted murder charges was so exhausted by caring for her dying mother after promising not to let her suffer that she acted "without conscious intent" when she tried to kill her, her attorney said Wednesday.
Lesley Martin, who wrote a frank account admitting she tried to kill her terminally ill mother, faces up to 20 years' imprisonment on charges of attempted murder in the country's first mercy-killing trial.
Martin wrote in her book "To Die Like a Dog" that she twice tried to end the suffering of her 69-year-old mother, Joy, first with a morphine overdose, and then by suffocating her with a pillow. The mother suffered from painful bowel cancer.
After the book's publication, police charged Martin, a former nurse, with one count of attempting to murder her mother with a lethal overdose of morphine, a day before she died on May 28, 1999. A post-mortem report said the mother died of respiratory arrest, possibly due to morphine poisoning or pneumonia. A police homicide inquiry found that Martin and later a hospice nurse injected the sick woman with morphine. Martin faces a second attempted murder count based on her efforts to smother her mother with a pillow.
Defense attorney Donald Stevens said Martin was exhausted at the time of her mother's death, and was in "an intolerable position" because of her promise that she would not allow her to suffer.
"The impact of that promise could have been so powerful that combined with all of the other circumstances that applied, Lesley Martin had no alternative but to act in the way she did," he said. "The evidence will be that that promise could have been so powerful that it had a major part to play in Lesley Martin acting mechanically, automatically, without conscious intention," Stevens told the High Court in Wanganui.
Exhausted and "driven to the very limits of endurance," her "reasoning capacity" was overridden by "powerful, instinctive forces of love and compassion," he said.
Defense witness Prof. Richard Owens, a forensic psychologist from the University of Wales, said the issue with giving high doses of morphine to dying patients was the intent behind its use. "The intention is to relieve the suffering. The shortening of life is acceptable if the intent is the relief of suffering," he said.
Police investigator Det. Sgt. Ross Grantham earlier told the court that Martin had insisted after her mother's death that she was not a killer.
"I'm not a murderer... helping someone to die - who you love - according to their wishes, is not murder," he said Martin told him.
Martin, 40, helped found Exit New Zealand, a voluntary euthanasia lobby group affiliated with Exit Australia, an euthanasia group founded by Australian campaigner Dr. Philip Nitschke.
The trial is in its second week in the High Court at Wanganui, a city 195 kilometers (120 miles) north of the capital, Wellington.
The author of a book on euthanasia has sold 12 extra copies - one for each of the jurors who are to decide whether she is guilty of attempting to murder her mother five years ago. The judge, Justice John Wild, invited the jury to take home a copy of Lesley Martin's book, To Die Like a Dog, and read it overnight. The judge also cautioned the media and pro- and anti-euthanasia advocates gathered in Wanganui for the trial about contempt of court, warning he would "take action" if necessary.
Lesley Martin, 40, a registered nurse, of New Plymouth, was not charged after the death of her mother, Joy, in 1999, despite admitting that she administered a large dose of the drug morphine a day before her mother passed away. But when she published her book in 2002 telling how when the drugs failed to kill her mother she held a pillow over her head until she stopped breathing, charges were laid. In the High Court yesterday jurors were told by Crown prosecutor Andrew Cameron that their own views on euthanasia were not relevant.
"This isn't about your own moral and philosophical opinion, it is about our law," Mr Cameron said.
"Our law does not allow euthanasia."
He said even if the jury accepted that Joy Martin had asked her daughter to end her life, it was no defence.
Joy Martin was diagnosed with rectal cancer in 1998, operated on in January 1999, suffered complications and was in and out of hospital for several months. She suffered nausea throughout the treatment and in April a scan found she had a cancerous tumour on her liver. She elected not to have treatment and said she wanted to be nursed by her daughter and to die at home.
Lesley Martin, an experienced intensive-care nurse, was involved in her care at home and in hospital with the consent of doctors. Joy Martin was on a variety of drugs to treat her symptoms, including depression and nausea, and in May her doctor prescribed morphine for pain. Lesley Martin was given 120mg of morphine and told to administer 10mg every six to eight hours. The morphine should have lasted three days, Mr Cameron said. Instead, on the evening of May 25 Lesley Martin gave her mother 30mg of morphine and on the evening of May 27 60mg of morphine - "plainly a huge overdose".
This was in addition to morphine being administered at the rate of 10mg every 24 hours through a syringe driver set up by terminal care nurse Wiki Alward, who visited the home on May 26. Nurse Alward did not know when she did that how much morphine Joy Martin had already been given.
Mr Cameron said Nurse Alward was "amazed" when she discovered on May 28 that all the morphine available at the home had been used.
"She will tell you that Mrs Martin was in discomfort but she was not in severe pain."
When Nurse Alward challenged Lesley Martin, she was told Martin gave her mother the morphine because her mother told her she did not want to die a slow, painful death.
"When you give someone more drugs than required to control their pain, with a view perhaps to ending their life, that is euthanasia," Mr Cameron said.
What she did not tell Nurse Alward was that when the drugs failed to kill her mother, she put a pillow over her head and held it there until her breathing stopped.
An autopsy revealed the cause as respiratory arrest caused either by the morphine or bronchio-pneumonia. There was no evidence she had been smothered. The evidence of that is contained in Martin's book, which Mr Cameron said was published with a view to persuading New Zealanders to change the law on euthanasia.
The trial is expected to take two weeks. Dr Donald Stevens, QC, is representing Martin. Justice Wild expressed concern about the possible reporting of statements made outside the courtroom and their potential to prejudice a fair trial.
Californian anti-euthanasia campaigner Brian Johnston and Australian pro-euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke, known as "Dr Death", are in Wanganui.
Justice Wild said in court that he understood that Mr Johnston had spoken to reporters outside the court and expressed views about the "rights and wrongs in this trial".
The judge told the court that comment on the trial, the evidence or the allegations was not permitted while the trial - expected to last a fortnight - was in progress.
"If I become aware of anybody doing that I will take action because that is contempt of court."
A euthanasia campaigner in New Zealand has gone on trial on charges of attempting to murder her elderly mother. Police pursued a criminal investigation after nurse Lesley Martin wrote a book three years ago describing how she tried to kill her 69-year-old mother in 1999 by giving her an overdose of morphine and trying to smother her with a pillow. Joy Martin, who had bowel cancer, died the following day.
An autopsy revealed that the cause of death was respiratory arrest, caused either by administration of morphine or bronchio-pneumonia. There was no evidence that she had been smothered. An initial police investigation was dropped for lack of evidence, but the case was re-opened after publication of the book, To Die Like a Dog, in which Martin recounted the experience.
Martin, a 40-year-old registered intensive care nurse, has since becoming a high-profile campaigner for euthanasia, and formed a New Zealand branch of Exit, a lobby group headed by Australia's most prominent euthanasia advocate, Dr. Philip Nitschke.
Nitschke, who is known around the world for promoting various controversial suicide devices, has been one of Martin's strongest supporters.
New Zealand lawmakers last year narrowly defeated a bill, which had the backing of Prime Minister Helen Clark, that would have allowed people who are terminally or incurably ill to get a medically qualified person to end their lives. Martin's trial has revived the national debate.
"This is the trial of everyone who's ever made a promise that they would help someone die gently if necessary, and the trial of every doctor who has helped and remained silent," she said in a statement before her hearing began.
In the High Court in Wanganui, south of Auckland, Judge John Wild urged members of the jury to take home copies of Martin's book to read overnight. Attending the trial are Nitschke and a leading American anti-euthanasia campaigner, Brian Johnston, author of a 1997 book called "Death as a Salesman: What's Wrong With Assisted Suicide."
If found guilty, Martin could face up to 14 years' imprisonment.
Euthanasia is illegal in most parts of the world, although laws allowing it under certain circumstances have been passed in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and the state of Oregon.
A jury of seven men and five women was selected this morning in the High Court at Wanganui for the trial of euthanasia campaigner Lesley Martin who is accused of attempting to murder her mother. Before the prosecution opened its case against Martin, Justice Wild ruled that cameras would be allowed to film only official witnesses – those giving evidence in their professional capacity. Joy Martin died in May 1999 and a police investigation followed, with no arrests made. Three years later, Martin published a book, To Die Like a Dog, in which she wrote that she gave her mother a morphine overdose and later tried to smother her with a pillow.
In March 2003, Martin was arrested and charged with attempted murder. A depositions hearing in Wanganui last year established there was a sufficient case to answer and committed Martin for trial. As part of an ongoing campaign for voluntary euthanasia Martin helped form lobby group Exit New Zealand. Well-known euthanasia campaigner and head of Exit Australia, Philip Nitschke, is in New Zealand to support Martin at her trial. The pair have just finished a series of end-of-life forums and debates around the country.
Martin's trial has been set down for two weeks.
Nearly five years after her mother's death, euthanasia campaigner Lesley Martin faces a jury today as she stands trial for attempted murder. Martin's trial in the High Court at Wanganui has been set down for two weeks. Joy Martin died in May 1999 and a police investigation followed, with no arrests made. Three years later Martin published a book, To Die Like a Dog, in which she wrote that she gave her mother a morphine overdose and later tried to smother her with a pillow.
In March 2003 Martin was arrested and charged with attempted murder. A depositions hearing in Wanganui last year established there was a sufficient case to answer and committed Martin for trial.
As part of an ongoing campaign for voluntary euthanasia Martin helped form lobby group Exit New Zealand. Well-known euthanasia campaigner and head of Exit Australia, Philip Nitschke, is in New Zealand to support Martin at her trial. The pair have just finished a series of end-of-life forums and debates around the country.
A NEW ZEALAND woman faces up to 20 years imprisonment on two charges of attempting to murder her terminally ill mother when she goes on trial next week in the country's first mercy killing trial. Lesley Martin fuelled the mercy killing debate in New Zealand when she wrote a frank account of the death of her mother, who was stricken with bowel cancer, titled To Die Like A Dog. In the book, Martin said she twice tried to end the suffering of her 69-year-old mother, Joy, first with a bigger-than-usual dose of morphine, and then by suffocating her with a pillow. After the book's publication, police charged Martin, a former nurse, with one count of attempting to murder her mother with a lethal overdose of morphine, a day before she died on May 28, 1999.
A post-mortem report said the mother died of respiratory arrest, possibly due to morphine poisoning or pneumonia. A police homicide inquiry found that Martin and later a hospice nurse injected the sick woman with morphine. Martin faces a second attempted murder count based on her efforts to smother her mother with a pillow, Detective Sergeant Ross Grantham said.
"We decided there were two events and therefore two specific counts" for which Martin should be tried, Grantham said.
The trial is due to open next Monday in the High Court in Wanganui, 195km north of the capital, Wellington. It is expected to last two weeks, Martin's lawyer said. The charges each carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. Martin says she promised her mother that she would help her die painlessly. The case has triggered nationwide debate on mercy killing, and garnered international support for Martin's stance, particularly from the United States, Europe and Australia.
Martin, 40, helped found Exit New Zealand, a voluntary euthanasia lobby group affiliated with Exit Australia, an euthanasia group founded by Australian campaigner Dr Philip Nitschke. She may also face a contempt of court charge over her web site, where she records a "pre-trial diary". A court ruling has barred her from talking publicly about the case. But she has kept up a steady campaign for legalising voluntary euthanasia, travelling widely and speaking in a series of university debates on "the benefits of voluntary euthanasia".
New Zealand lawmakers last year narrowly defeated legislation to legalise voluntary euthanasia. In their second vote on the issue in eight years, legislators voted 60 to 58 against the "death with dignity" bill. One lawmaker abstained and one was absent.
The Netherlands was the first country to legalise assisted suicide in April 2001. Belgium later enacted a similar law. In the United States, the state of Oregon is alone in allowing physician-assisted suicide, but this is under constant legal challenge.
Lesley Martin appears remarkably composed less than a week before she stands trial for attempting to murder her mother.
"As it's getting closer I'm really starting to feel the gut iciness. I'm really confident in my lawyers and I'm confident in the people of New Zealand," Martin told The Press yesterday. The former Wanganui intensive care nurse has been charged with attempting to murder her terminally ill 69-year-old mother, Joy Patricia Martin, in May 1999.
Martin was in Christchurch yesterday in her role as founder of Exit New Zealand, a pro-euthanasia lobby group. She is touring universities across the country and talking about euthanasia in the lead-up to her trial.
She was supposed to be joined by Australia's "Dr Death", vocal euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke, but he was unable to attend because of illness. Martin yesterday said she chose to publicise her involvement in the death of her mother because the issue needed to be aired.
The police decided to pursue a homicide investigation after reading Martin's book, To Die Like a Dog, which outlines the events leading up to the death of Martin's mother. A depositions hearing last year revealed Martin told police about the "emotional trigger" that led her to inject her mother with an overdose of morphine and later smother her with a pillow.
Asked yesterday if she knew she would face criminal charges following the publication of her book, Martin replied: "Of course I did, and I thought, it actually has to take somebody who is prepared to go to trial who shouldn't have to, to get people's attention. You have to do something outside the square. I really struggled with myself because I knew the consequences. I kept trying to not do it, I kept trying to put it aside. It was a huge roll of the dice," Martin said.
BR>She appeared outwardly calm and composed as she spoke to students and members of the public gathered at the University of Canterbury yesterday. She argued that people should be given the legal right to decide their own fate and urged people to have their say by phoning 0900 52525, a phone line set up by Exit New Zealand to convey the public's view to the Government. Martin's trial starts in Wanganui on Monday.
DESPITE collapsing today, Australian euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke expects to be in New Zealand in time for the March 15 trial date of a fellow campaigner charged with attempted murder. Dr Nitschke is bed bound after collapsing from an ear infection, leading to the cancellation of a scheduled appearance in New Zealand tomorrow. He was due to speak at Victoria University in Wellington as part of a series of nationwide euthanasia debates and workshops.
A spokeswoman for Dr Nitschke's organisation Exit Australia said he expected to be in New Zealand in time for the March 15 trial of euthanasia campaigner Lesley Martin, who is charged with attempting to murder her mother.
"He's sick, but he's not about to die," the Exit Australia spokeswoman said.
Federal Opposition leader Mark Latham has stepped away from giving a commitment on voluntary euthanasia.
Responding to a talkback call on the ABC in Darwin from euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke, Mr Latham said he did oppose the Kevin Andrews Bill in 1997 that overruled Territory laws allowing voluntary euthanasia. But Mr Latham says he cannot give a concrete commitment on voluntary euthanasia given the complexity of the issue.
"As a principle, I don't think it's right for Territory laws to be overridden no matter what those laws are," he said. "But as for these issues of morality, they're a conscience vote within the Parliament. On the question of euthanasia, like many people, it's never clear-cut in my mind and I'd want to have a re-think of all the evidence and issues and the material that have come up since 1997."
Exit Australia director Dr Philip Nitschke has called on Federal Labor leader Mark Latham not to abandon his support for voluntary euthanasia legislation in the Northern Territory. Dr Nitschke says Mr Latham spoke in favour of the Territory's right to make the euthanasia laws during federal parliamentary debate on the issue in the mid-1990s. The Northern Territory's laws were eventually overturned by the Commonwealth.
Dr Nitschke says he is concerned Mr Latham is reconsidering his opinion now he has taken over the Labor leadership.
"One hopes that he rethinks and being the straight talking, down to earth, honest person that he is, that he rediscovers this strong position that he took back in 1996," Dr Nitschke said. "We hope every politician does [rethink the issue], but that they really see that there really is folly of government whenever they seek to impose their morality on one part of society. I would hope [Mr Latham would] support a close look at the Kevin Andrews bill and whether or not the Territory should again have the right to make laws on this issue."
Euthanasia advocates will be able to take home lethal carbon monoxide machines when Australia's 'Dr Death' runs a workshop in New Zealand in March. The New Zealand Medical Association and NZ First deputy leader Peter Brown, who sponsored the defeated euthanasia bill, oppose the workshop but the police and Immigration Service say there is no reason to stop Philip Nitschke.
Dr Nitschke told The Dominion Post he planned to run one workshop to teach people how to build a machine that emitted lethal carbon monoxide gas. The death-machine workshop will coincide with a visit to support Wanganui woman Lesley Martin, who faces trial in March for attempting to murder her terminally ill mother.
Wellington or Auckland were the most likely venues for the carbon monoxide workshop, Dr Nitschke said.
A similar workshop he ran in Brisbane recently attracted controversy. Asked if he expected similar criticism in New Zealand, he said: "Oh yes, it's always the case. It's very hard… People are really wanting options."
Dr Nitschke said the defeat of Mr Brown's euthanasia bill had "paradoxically" increased support for euthanasia in New Zealand. "You can stop legislation by putting pressure on people but you can't stop a grassroots movement spreading through the elderly by word of mouth."
The workshop would entail sending people out to buy the components needed to build a carbon monoxide machine and then having participants help each other build one. They would then be able to take the machine home. "We suggest they obtain a meter beforehand to make sure they are producing lethal weapons," he said.
The workshop would also focus on other techniques that could be used by euthanasia advocates, such as the exit bag – a plastic bag with a drawstring that fits over the head.
Despite supporting "death with dignity", Mr Brown said he had "real concerns" about the workshop. "This sort of machine might get into the hands of all sorts of people – young people – adding to our suicide problem." He had made some changes to his bill and hoped it would soon be "resurrected".
New Zealand Medical Association chairwoman Tricia Briscoe said the association did not support Dr Nitschke's "beliefs or methods". "People are scared of dying in pain and people like Dr Nitschke feed on that."
Health Minister Annette King said she opposed the euthanasia bill but Dr Nitschke was entitled to hold a seminar provided he did not break the law.
Police spokesman John Neilson said he was not aware Dr Nitschke's workshop was against the law and there were no plans to stop him entering New Zealand or seize his equipment.
Immigration Service spokesman Brett Solvander said the service did not know Dr Nitschke's criminal history but he would be allowed into the country provided he had neither been convicted of a serious crime nor had a serious health problem.
Last January, Dr Nitschke had a carbon monoxide machine confiscated by customs officials before boarding a flight from Australia to the United States.
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