LIBEL-PROOF KEVORKIAN

The Michigan State Court of Appeals did something admirable last week: It dismissed a libel suit brought by Jack Kevorkian against the Michigan State Medical Society and the American Medical Association for publishing essays calling him a "killer" back in 1996.

Libel suits, the court pointed out, should be dismissed "where an allegedly libelous statement cannot realistically cause impairment of reputation because the person's reputation is already so low." And in the case of Kevorkian -- who has supervised more than 130 "suicides" and was finally convicted this year of second-degree murder -- the reputation has fallen to the point where, on "the issue of assisted suicide, plaintiff is virtually 'libel proof.'"

But THE SCRAPBOOK shouldn't let this praise-the-courts thing get out of hand. The Michigan judges didn't say Kevorkian is libel proof because he truly is a killer; that seemed much too bold. No, they decided instead that his, um, "actions" have made him a public figure and you can't easily libel public figures: Kevorkian's "very celebrity (or notoriety, if you will) derives exclusively from his participation in a national debate over the propriety of 'assisted suicide' -- whether it is more akin to an act of mercy or to an act of homicide," the court declared.

Geoffrey Fieger -- you remember Geoffrey Fieger, don't you? He was Kevorkian's lawyer once upon a time, through he subsequently left to become the 1998 Democratic nominee for governor of Michigan, campaigning by calling Jesus Christ "some goof-ball that got nailed to the cross" and comparing rabbis to Nazis. Well, when a lower court judge first allowed this case to proceed in 1996, Fieger crowed, "You can't yell fire in a crowded theater, you can't knowingly distribute pornography, and you can't call Jack Kevorkian a killer and accuse him of engaging in criminal activity unless it's the truth."

Turns out, it is the truth. And was the truth. And will remain the truth: In his thoughts and in his words, in what he has done and what he has failed to do, Kevorkian is a killer.