JUSTICES REJECT U.S. BID TO BLOCK ASSISTED SUICIDE

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court removed an obstacle on Tuesday
to state efforts to authorize physician-assisted suicide, ruling 6 to
3 that John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, acted without legal
authority when he threw the federal government's weight against the
Death With Dignity Act in Oregon five years ago.

With the new chief justice, John G. Roberts Jr., in dissent in the
most high-profile case since he joined the court, the decision lifted
a major barrier to state initiatives like the one in Oregon, which has
the only assisted-suicide law in the country. [News analysis, Page
A16.]

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's majority opinion did not say that
Congress could not act to block such laws, only that it had not given
Mr. Ashcroft the "extraordinary authority" that he claimed when he
threatened Oregon doctors who followed the state law with losing their
federal prescription-writing privileges.

While the court's decision was based on standard principles of
administrative law, and not on the Constitution, it was clearly
influenced by the majority's view that the regulation of medical
practice belonged, as a general matter, to the states. Mr. Ashcroft
acted contrary to "the background principles of our federal system,"
Justice Kennedy said in his 28-page opinion.

The decision on Tuesday upheld rulings by two lower federal courts.
Mr. Ashcroft, while attorney general, appealed to the Supreme Court in
November 2004. His successor, Alberto R. Gonzales, embraced his
position and pursued the appeal after the justices agreed last
February to hear the case.

Chief Justice Roberts did not write a dissenting opinion, instead
signing a dissent written by Justice Antonin Scalia. For those eager
for any hint about the new chief justice's predilections, his silent
joining of this strongly worded opinion was intriguing. When the case
was argued on Oct. 5, his second day on the bench, Chief Justice
Roberts was an active participant but did not tip his hand.

At his confirmation hearing, he had declined to answer questions about
his personal views on issues like assisted suicide, saying a judge's
views and values should play no role in his judicial decisions.

Justice Clarence Thomas did write a dissenting opinion, saying it was
"perplexing to say the least" to find the court interpreting federal
drug law narrowly in this instance when only months ago, it upheld
broad federal authority to prevent states from authorizing the use of
marijuana for medical purposes.

Oregon voters approved the Death With Dignity Act in 1994 and affirmed
it 1997. The law says that doctors who follow specific procedures may
prescribe lethal doses of federally regulated medications to help
their mentally competent, terminally ill patients end their lives.
Through 2004, 325 people had obtained the lethal prescriptions, and
208 had used them.

When the Oregon measure took effect, Mr. Ashcroft was a senator from
Missouri. Along with other members of Congress, he asked the Clinton
administration to take steps to block the law. Attorney General Janet
Reno refused, writing to Congress in June 1998 to say she had no
authority to act because there was no evidence that Congress "intended
to displace the states as the primary regulators of the medical
profession." Mr. Ashcroft then co-sponsored a bill to give the
government this authority, but it did not pass.

As attorney general, Mr. Ashcroft announced in November 2001 that
doctors who prescribed lethal doses of drugs for the purpose of
assisting a suicide risked losing their federal licenses to prescribe
all "controlled substances." Without such licenses, doctors would find
it difficult to practice medicine because controlled substances
include many prescription pain relievers and other commonly used
medications.

Oregon sued to block the new rule, joined by a doctor, a pharmacist
and several terminally ill patients.

As authority for his action, Mr. Ashcroft invoked the Controlled
Substances Act, a 1970 law that established the framework for federal
drug policy, as well as a regulation issued by the Justice Department
the following year that put the law into effect. The regulation
requires that every prescription for a controlled substance "be issued
for a legitimate medical purpose." Assisted suicide is "not a
legitimate medical purpose," Mr. Ashcroft said.

In his opinion on Tuesday, Gonzales v. Oregon, No. 04-623, Justice
Kennedy emphasized, with evident disapproval, the unilateral nature of
Mr. Ashcroft's action, taken "without consulting Oregon or apparently
anyone outside his department." The attorney general's rule was not
entitled to the deference the court usually gave to interpretations of
governing statutes by executive branch officials, he said, because
Congress had not given the attorney general the authority he was invoking.

"The authority claimed by the attorney general is both beyond his
expertise and incongruous with the statutory purposes and design,"
Justice Kennedy said.

Justice Scalia, in his dissenting opinion, took issue with the
argument that Congress could not have intended to delegate medical
judgments of this sort to the attorney general. The legitimacy of
physician-assisted suicide "ultimately rests, not on 'science' or
'medicine,' but on a naked value judgment," he said, adding, "It no
more depends upon a 'quintessentially medical judgment' than does the
legitimacy of polygamy or eugenic infanticide."

Justice Scalia said Mr. Ashcroft's action was "the most reasonable
interpretation" of the statute because "virtually every relevant
source of authoritative meaning confirms that the phrase 'legitimate
medical purpose' does not include intentionally assisting suicide."

In the few months since the case was argued on Oct. 5, the question of
how skeptically the Supreme Court will be willing to examine the
exercise of power by the executive branch has become considerably more
prominent. This issue also seemed to mark a divide between the
majority and the dissent.

In his opinion, Justice Kennedy said that Mr. Ashcroft was claiming
the "extraordinary authority" to declare as criminal actions that
Congress had not designated as crimes, and that he was seeking "a
radical shift of authority from the states to the federal government
to define general standards of medical practice in every locality."

But Congress had no such intent in passing the Controlled Substances
Act, Justice Kennedy said. "The structure and operation of the C.S.A.
presume and rely upon a functioning medical profession regulated under
the states' police powers," he said, adding that "Oregon's regime is
an example of the state regulation of medical practice that the C.S.A.
presupposes."

Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, David H. Souter, Ruth
Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer signed the majority opinion.

The court was clearly aware that it was venturing into "an earnest and
profound debate," as Justice Kennedy noted, quoting from the court's
1997 opinion in an assisted-suicide case. In that case, Washington v.
Glucksberg, the court said that the Constitution did not convey a
right to assistance in dying, but that states were free to experiment
with the issue. "The dispute before us," Justice Kennedy said, "is in
part a product of this political and moral debate."

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said Tuesday, "We
are disappointed at the decision." Mr. McClellan added, "The president
remains fully committed to building a culture of life, a culture of
life that is built on valuing life at all stages."