US ‘mercy killer’ jailed for murder

Kenneth Minor to appeal against life sentence after victim Jeffrey Locker hired the homeless man for assisted suicide A man convicted of murdering a debt-ridden motivational speaker has been sentenced to at least 20 years in prison in a case that tested the bounds of assisted suicide. Speaking for the first time about the death of Jeffrey Locker in July 2009, Kenneth Minor said his own life had “ended” the day he accepted Locker’s offer to pay to be killed in an apparent robbery so that his family could collect millions of dollars in insurance money . “In the end, Locker is where he wanted to be,” said Minor, 38. “I’m no animal, and I ain’t got no malice in my heart. “In the end, a life is a life. And I ask your forgiveness,” he said – before yelling an expletive on hearing his 20-years-to-life sentence. He plans to appeal, citing a juror’s statement that she felt compelled to convict him on the judge’s instructions. The case was unusual for broaching the concept of assisted suicide in the context of strangers staging an apparent street crime. Locker approached Minor on a New York street to ask for help staging his death, both prosecutors and Minor had said. Minor did not testify at his trial but told his account to police when he was arrested. Locker, 52, co-authored a 1998 self-help book and gave presentations on handling workplace stress. But he was deep in financial trouble himself, partly because of an investment in a $300m (£185m) Ponzi scheme. Locker had planned his death, including researching funeral arrangements online, sending his wife an email explaining how to shield and distribute their assets “when I am gone” and buying about $14m in life insurance in his final months to add to the $4m he already had, investigators found. Minor was a homeless former computer technician with a record of drug arrests. He said he initially balked at Locker’s request but started to feel sorry for him after hearing about his money troubles. Prosecutors said Minor went beyond aiding his suicide by stabbing Locker seven times in his car in East Harlem, New York, miles from his home on Long Island. Minor was arrested a few days later after using Locker’s cash-machine card – his compensation from Locker, he claimed. “This was murder for money, not a mercy killing,” said Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance after Minor’s conviction last month. Minor said he only held a knife while Locker repeatedly lunged into it. “I’m not suggesting that what Minor did is correct or right,” his lawyer, Daniel Gotlin, told the court, but “had Locker not decided to come to Manhattan and find an underprivileged individual, a minority individual, to do his dirty work, we would not be here today.” Minor, who said he had offered to plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter, also said he believed race played a role in the case. But the state supreme court justice Carol Berkman said race “has nothing to do with what’s going on here”. “[Minor] was willing to participate in inflicting great pain on another human being for cash,” she said before sentencing him to a prison term midway between the minimum and maximum for his conviction. Berkman’s instructions to the jury about New York law surrounding assisted suicide are likely to focus Minor’s appeal. The state allows “causing or aiding” a suicide as a defence to certain murder charges; over Gotlin’s objections, Berkman told jurors that provision could not apply if Minor “actively” caused Locker’s death. That confused jurors about the defence, juror Olympia Moy said in a sworn statement that the defence team filed in court. “If the judge had not instructed us to consider whether Minor’s killing was ‘active’ or not, I would have voted not guilty to murder,” Moy’s statement said, adding that she contacted Gotlin to express her concerns after the verdict. Berkman believes the instructions were appropriate, and rejected a bid to overturn the verdict. “I’m sorry that a juror was shaken,” she said, but “day-after remorse by a juror is never a basis to question a verdict.” Locker’s family has been unable to collect most of the insurance money. His widow and family declined to comment through her father’s law office. Criminal cases surrounding assisted suicide have often concerned terminally ill people and the medical providers or relatives who help them end their lives. But a few other cases besides Minor’s have involved looser relationships and people who were not sick. New York United States guardian.co.uk

Posted by on April 5, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.