(LifeSiteNews) — A Colorado man who helped his mom kill herself has been spared jail time for his crime while a group that promotes assisted suicide could end up $50,000 richer, thanks to a sympathetic judge.
A Colorado man who pleaded guilty to helping his 91-year-old mother die by suicide has avoided jail time and was instead ordered to donate $25,000 to an organization that promotes assisted suicide.
“David Norton, 68, pleaded guilty … to one count of manslaughter by aiding suicide and one count of tampering with physical evidence as part of a plea deal with the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office,” according to the Colorado Hometown Weekly.
Norton, along with his sister-in-law Kim Roller, conspired to kill Mildred Roller, Norton’s mom.
The news outlet reported:
The 91-year-old died of “asphyxia due to a bag over the head and displacement of oxygen by nitrogen gas,” Meredith Frank, a doctor in the Boulder County Coroner’s Office, wrote in the autopsy opinion reviewed by a grand jury. She did not have a terminal illness and had not been found incompetent, the autopsy said.
The judge, who appears to support assisted suicide, said she was not sure if Norton should even be punished. She settled on a light sentence of “two years of probation” and a requirement “to donate to a medical aid-in-dying charity.”
“Medical aid-in-dying” is a euphemism for assisted suicide. So, in order to punish Norton for illegally aiding in a suicide, the judge required him to donate to a “charity” that encourages physician-assisted suicide.
Boulder County District Court Judge Dea Lindsey expressed her reservations about the punishment.
“I go back and forth on whether this should be a charge at all,” Lindsey said. “I think it’s a philosophical issue.” Notably, Lindsey’s judicial profile explains she used to work on “dependency and neglect” cases for Boulder County.
Norton’s sister-in-law, who aided in the suicide, received an “identical sentence,” the news outlet reported.
Neither will struggle to make the $25,000 donation to an assisted suicide non-profit, as both will financially benefit from the death of the elderly woman.
“Mildred Roller’s will stipulates that after her death, her children receive equal shares of her estate, which included a savings account with approximately $655,540 in it,” Colorado Hometown Weekly reported.
While Colorado allows for assisted suicide in some cases, Live Action’s Bridget Sielicki observed: “There is never a situation in which it is appropriate to help a person end his or her own life, even if sick or disabled.”