Seattle ? A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft had far exceeded his authority by interfering with Oregon’s physician-assisted suicide law.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco said that Ashcroft’s order to the Drug Enforcement Agency to pursue and possibly revoke the licenses of physicians who prescribe lethal prescriptions “may not be enforced” because it goes against the will of Congress and contradicts federal law.

Ashcroft’s 2001 order, even though it has been enjoined from enforcement pending appeal, caused a widespread “chilling effect” on the willingness of Oregon physicians to consult with or prescribe lethal drugs to patients seeking to die, according to George Eighmey, executive director of Compassion in Dying of Oregon.

“They told me they didn’t want Ashcroft coming after them,” Eighmey said. He said in that in the last year 142 people asked to start the process of assisted suicide, but only 42 went through with it.

Oregon’s law is unique in the nation. The Bush administration has argued that “assisted suicide is not medicine.” An assistant attorney general, Robert McCallum, said last year that “a caring society” should help the terminally ill cope with their problems, “not abandon or assist in killing them.”

A spokesman for the Justice Department, William Miller, said Wednesday that “we are reviewing the court’s decision, and no determination has been made as to what the government’s next step will be.”

In his opinion for the 2-1 majority, Judge Richard Tallman concluded: “The attorney general’s unilateral attempt to regulate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers interferes with the democratic debate about physician assisted suicide and far exceeds the scope of his authority.”

Tallman said the court, often described as the most liberal appeals panel in the country, was expressing no opinion on whether physician-assisted suicide “is inconsistent with the public interest or constitutes illegitimate medical care. This case is simply about who gets to decide.”

The court found that Ashcroft had no such right.

It added “that the attorney general has no specialized expertise in the field of medicine” and that he “imposes a sweeping and unpersuasive interpretation” of the Controlled Substance Act, which “directly conflicts with that of his predecessor.”

Wednesday’s ruling follows a stinging rebuke of Ashcroft delivered last year by a federal judge in Portland, Ore. There, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Jones, noting that the people of the state had twice voted in favor of the suicide law, said that Ashcroft was trying to “stifle an ongoing, earnest and profound debate.”