Jury Told Abetted-Suicide Case May Establish Rights : Law: California man faces up to life in prison for killing his cancer-stricken wife. The panel continues its deliberations today.

In an emotional closing argument, a lawyer for a California man on trial for killing his cancer-stricken wife pleaded with a jury for compassion Thursday and said its verdict could have lasting consequences for other terminally ill people who want to die.

Comparing the case to past struggles for civil rights and for the right of women to vote, attorney Otis Culpepper said: “Our law is not a rigid law, not an unchanging law. When you consider the law you don’t have to give up your conscience. You don’t have to give up your compassion.”

The jury deliberated for an hour Thursday on whether to convict Bertram R. Harper, 73, of second-degree murder for suffocating his 69-year-old wife last August in a suburban Detroit motel room. They will resume deliberations today. If found guilty, Harper could face up to life in prison.

On Wednesday, Harper testified that he, his wife and stepdaughter had traveled to Michigan to carry out his wife’s last wishes. They thought that assisting suicide was legal in Michigan, he said.

But Wayne County assistant prosecutor Timothy Kenny said Harper “crossed the line” from assisting suicide to committing murder when he covered his wife’s face with a plastic bag after she had fallen asleep.

Citing Harper’s own taped statement to police, he said, “The sole and final act that caused her death was (performed) by her husband. That’s the reality of what happened and that’s exactly what we can’t escape from.”

Harper’s stepdaughter, Shanda McGrew, testified Thursday that Virginia Harper was determined to die that night rather than suffer a slow, painful death from liver cancer. She had tried to asphyxiate herself several times that night after swallowing sleeping pills, McGrew said. Each time, Harper or McGrew would lift the plastic bag from her face when she became hot and uncomfortable.

Virginia Harper pulled the bag back down over her face each time except the last time, when her husband did it for her after she had fallen sleep, McGrew said.

Asked by Hugh M. Davis, another defense attorney, if her mother ever indicated that she had changed her mind about killing herself, McGrew said no. “I had asked her on one or two occasions if she wanted to discontinue this, and she said no,” McGrew said.

As described by McGrew in a taped statement to the police shortly after her mother died, the suicide attempt was an ordeal that lasted five hours. The tape was played in court Thursday.

Virginia lay on a bed, propped up by pillows, with her husband and daughter on either side, holding her hands, McGrew said.

“We just talked and kissed and even laughed and had some loving moments, and this went on for some time,” she said on the tape. It was 2 a.m. before Virginia Harper swallowed 10 sleeping pills, along with other medicine for pain and nausea, washing it all down with coffee liqueur.

After several attempts failed, McGrew told the police: “We were ready to give up. We didn’t know what to do.” She said she feared her mother would either be made a vegetable by the drug overdose or would wake up anguished because the plan didn’t work and she would have to find another way.

McGrew said it was about 7 a.m. when her mother finally died.

Sounding tearful, she said, “I left the room because at that point it was over and I . . . just broke down, and I knew that my dad was having a hard enough time keeping it together and I didn’t want to make it any worse for him. So I went to my room and cried.”

Acknowledging the love that the family felt for each other and that Bertram Harper is a “likable” man, Kenny said nevertheless that sympathy and compassion had nothing to do with the legal question at hand.