U.S. appeals Oregon suicide law ruling

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SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) -- The U.S. Justice Department filed an appeal Monday to overturn a federal judge's ruling that upheld Oregon's doctor-assisted suicide law.

A spokesman for Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers said the state views the appeal as "same story, different day."

"We don't believe they've raised any new and compelling information that should sway a Court of Appeals," spokesman Kevin Neely said.

"We believe we have, one, a conclusive argument from the District Court in Oregon and, two, we have a better argument."

Oregon voters approved doctor-assisted suicide twice, in ballot initiatives in 1994 and 1997. But in November, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft warned Oregon doctors they would be prosecuted under federal law if they prescribed lethal doses of drugs for dying patients.

Oregon immediately filed an appeal in U.S. District Court in Portland, and a federal judge sided with the state in April.

According to documents filed Monday by Assistant U.S. Attorney General Robert D. McCallum Jr. at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, the federal Controlled Substance Act "expressly pre-empts any state laws that conflict" with it.

The government's appeal also states that "prescriptions of controlled substances must be issued for legitimate medical purposes."

The U.S. attorney general's office argued unsuccessfully in federal District Court that assisting suicide is not a legitimate medical purpose.

Barbara Coombs Lee, president of Compassion in Dying, a group that helped craft the Oregon Right to Die law, described the U.S. appeal as "nothing new" and a "losing argument."

"It's the same argument that the federal District Court saw, and we have no reason to believe that the appeals court will see it differently," Lee said.

Neely said the state of Oregon has 30 days in which to file its response, but it could follow the federal government's lead and use an optional 14-day extension. The federal appeal originally was scheduled to be filed September 9.

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