Former Doctor Pleads Guilty to Manslaughter for Assisting Suicide in New York Motel

Ex-Doctor Pleads Guilty to Manslaughter for Assisting Suicide

An 85-year-old for­mer doc­tor from Ari­zona, Stephen Miller, plead­ed guilty to manslaugh­ter on Tues­day for help­ing a woman com­mit sui­cide in an upstate New York motel room.

The 59-year-old woman, iden­ti­fied as Doreen Brod­head, was found dead by house­keep­ing staff at a Super 8 motel in Kingston last November.

Assisted Suicide Case Sheds Light on Legal and Ethical Debates

Brod­head­’s cause of death was “by means of assist­ed sui­cide,” accord­ing to the Ulster Coun­ty Dis­trict Attor­ney’s Office. 

Miller had trav­eled from his home in Tuc­son, Ari­zona, to the Hud­son Val­ley after six months of coun­sel­ing and speak­ing with Brod­head about the debil­i­tat­ing neck and back pain she had been liv­ing with for decades. 

He pro­vid­ed “very slight tech­ni­cal assis­tance” to Brod­head after she reached out to him due to his work with the right-to-die advo­ca­cy group, Choice and Dignity.

Under New York law, inten­tion­al­ly caus­ing or aid­ing anoth­er per­son­’s sui­cide is ille­gal. How­ev­er, Miller’s lawyer argued that while he tech­ni­cal­ly vio­lat­ed the law, he did noth­ing moral­ly wrong in assist­ing Brodhead. 

Plea Deal Spares Former Doctor from Jail Time

Miller orig­i­nal­ly plead­ed not guilty to the manslaugh­ter count and two assault charges fol­low­ing his arrest in February.

As part of a plea deal, the assault charges were dropped, and he was sen­tenced to five years of pro­ba­tion instead of fac­ing a poten­tial 25-year prison term if con­vict­ed on all counts.

The for­mer doc­tor, who had lost his med­ical license after a tax fraud con­vic­tion in Texas in 2006, said he will not pro­vide assist­ed sui­cide assis­tance in the future, as “that part of his life is over.”