Wachtler wrote the majority opinion in a 1988 right to die case interpreting the statute's requirement of "clear and convincing evidence" that a person who can no longer communicate would have wanted to die in a particular circumstance.
Wachtler was famously quoted by Tom Wolfe in the 1987 novel The Bonfire of the Vanities that "a grand jury would 'indict a ham sandwich,' if that's what you wanted."[REF][REF] .