My lede:

Physicians in Montana should not fear criminal prosecution when writing lethal prescriptions for mentally competent patients with terminal illnesses, the state’s supreme court said in a 4-2 decision issued Dec. 31, 2009.

Because patients consent to their own deaths and administer the lethal medications themselves, physicians would be shielded from homicide liability under state law, the court said in its decision in the case of Baxter v. Montana. The ruling makes Montana the third state, after Oregon and Washington, where physician-assisted suicide is legal.

The whole shebang.