Colorado appeals court rejects right-to-die claim

DENVER - The Colorado Court of Appeals has ruled against an 81-year-old man who claims free will granted by God or nature allows him to choose euthanasia for himself.

The court rejected former District Judge Robert Sanderson's claim that a state law criminalizing assisted suicide violates his constitutional right to the free exercise of religion.

Sanderson had asked the Prowers County District Court in 1996 to let him establish a power of attorney that would allow his wife to authorize his death by euthanasia as long as two doctors agreed his medical condition was hopeless. He was in good health, but wanted assisted-suicide as an option if his condition deteriorated.

State law says intentionally causing or helping another person commit suicide is manslaughter.

A district judge dismissed the petition in December 1998, saying the right-to-die claims Sanderson based on the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments were insupportable.

In his appeal, Sanderson raised only the First Amendment claim, contending that Colorado's assisted-suicide law interferes with his religious belief that God or nature gave human beings free will and intended that they use it.

In rejecting Sanderson's argument, the appeals court said ''an individual's religious beliefs do not excuse the individual from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate.''

In its ruling, the court said there have been many challenges to laws that criminalize assisted suicide - all unsuccessful - but that it was unaware of any previous challenge based on the free exercise clause.

Sanderson is in a nursing home following a car accident in April. He was on an outing Thursday and was not immediately available for comment, a nursing home employee said.