US Supreme Court won’t hear Minnesota assisted suicide case

MINNEAPOLIS – The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the case of a national group convicted of assisting in the 2007 suicide of a Minnesota woman.

The high court’s decision means the 2015 conviction will stand against Final Exit Network Inc., which was found guilty of assisting in the suicide of 57-year-old Doreen Dunn, of Apple Valley. She took her own life with advice from the group after a decade of chronic pain. The group was fined $30,000 and ordered to pay funeral expenses.

Florida-based Final Exit Network argued that Minnesota’s law making it a crime to help other people kill themselves violates the freedom of speech.

But Minnesota’s appellate courts disagreed, saying the state’s assisted-suicide law is constitutional and that “assisting” suicide can include speech instructing another person on methods.