Court of Appeals to rule in right-to-die case

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - The Minnesota Court of Appeals is expected to rule Monday on a challenge to a state law against "advising" suicide.

A judge earlier this year found the "advising" portion of the law was unconstitutionally overbroad. The ruling came in a case against four members of the national right-to-die group Final Exit Network, who were charged in the 2007 suicide of an Apple Valley woman. Dakota County Judge Karen Asphaug dismissed the charges against the group's former president but kept intact most charges against the other defendants.

Prosecutors appealed her declaration that the law was unconstitutional. The cases against the remaining defendants are on hold pending the appeal.

A ruling is pending from the Minnesota Supreme Court in a separate case of a Faribault man convicted of assisting two suicides.

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