A Comparative Legal Study of the Criminalization of Assisted Suicide : Focusing on US law

The U.S. Supreme Court, in its decision in Washington v. Glucksberg, has held that the “right to suicide” is not a right protected by the 14th Amendment. Therefore, it is left up to the states to decide whether and how to punish those who assist in suicide. There are three main types of state legislation that criminalize assisted suicide: those that criminalize it as an existing homicide offense, those that criminalize it as a new offense, and those that are a compromise between the two. In the Commonwealth, assisted suicide is criminalized as murder, but in legislation that criminalizes it as an existing homicide offense, it is usually criminalized as manslaughter. Regarding the distinction between assisted suicide and murder, if the actor directly causes the death, even if it is at the request of the deceased, it is usually considered murder. The question is how to handle assisted suicide in states that do not have a law criminalizing assisted suicide. Assisted suicide is usually divided into aiding suicide and causing suicide, the latter of which is punishable as murder, as the New Jersey Supreme Court has held, but the former is the lesser included offense of assisted suicide, so it is assumed that it cannot be punished in the absence of a penalty. However, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently recognized it as invlountary manslaughter, which is controversial,