Long Goodbye: The Deaths of Nancy Cruzan
In 1987, as a young lawyer, Colby took as his first case what appeared to be a simple probate issue--guardianship rights of the parents of a young woman who was in a persistent vegetative state after being severely injured in a car accident. Because the Cruzans wanted to remove their daughter's feeding tube, the case generated a firestorm of publicity and protests from right-to-lifers. Drawing on the taped recollections of Cruzan's father and his own records, Colby chronicles the stark human drama of a family forced to live its most intimate moments in the courts and the media. He tracks the case from its beginning in probate court in a small town in Missouri to the U.S. Supreme Court. After three years of litigation and seven years spent in a vegetative state, Cruzan was finally permitted to die. This is a truly riveting look at the case that sharpened public debate about the medical and legal issues surrounding brain death and the right to die with dignity.
