Jury Begins Deliberations in Assisted Suicide Case : Trial: Alex Coventry faces charges after giving a loaded shotgun to his roommate, who then killed himself.

With the legacy of Dr. Jack Kevorkian finally looming before them, a Van Nuys jury began deliberations Thursday to determine if a man violated California’s assisted suicide law by handing a loaded shotgun to his drunk and despondent roommate, who then killed himself.

The Superior Court jury is being asked to decide if Tujunga resident Alex Coventry should be convicted under a seldom-used, 121-year-old law that prohibits deliberately aiding, advising or encouraging someone to commit suicide.

Coventry, a 44-year-old recovering alcoholic, is charged with assisting in the death of Leonard Medina, a 42-year-old unemployed man who shared an apartment with Coventry and Linda McDowell, Coventry’s girlfriend. All three had been drinking the evening of July 2, 1993, when Medina shot himself, according to the evidence.

Prosecutors maintain that Coventry’s actions were outrageous and criminal because, they allege, he knew that Medina was very upset about his bleak financial situation and yet still handed him a loaded weapon and encouraged him to, “Just do it.” They also maintain that Coventry knew Medina had previously tried to kill himself.

During closing arguments Thursday, attorneys differed on whether the case should include comparisons with cases against Kevorkian, the retired Michigan pathologist who has gained international attention for admitting he helped 20 terminally ill patients end their lives.

Defense attorney Kenneth P. Lezin, who maintains Coventry had no idea Medina actually would commit suicide, expressed anger and outrage that his client was being prosecuted at all.

Lezin suggested that the district attorney’s office was simply seeking publicity when it charged Coventry and that the case was filed because prosecutors thought it was “cute, because they thought it might be fun.”

“They continue to deny this case has nothing to do with Kevorkian. . . but don’t think that for a minute,” Lezin said, pointing to a CNN camera crew in the courtroom.

The key word in the California law being cited in the case is “deliberately,” the defense attorney said, arguing that Coventry cannot be guilty of that because he did not believe his roommate would kill himself, thinking instead that Medina was “all talk.”

Lezin played a tape recording of a police interview in which Coventry is heard saying: “I think he did it accidentally, too . . . He might not have known that it was loaded.”

“This law is designed specifically for a Kevorkian-type situation” where someone is clearly aware that his actions will result in another’s death, said Lezin, as he asked the jury to issue a not-guilty verdict.

Although Coventry acknowledges his actions were wrong, Lezin said the “terrible judgment” behind his actions lacked the criminal intent necessary to be convicted.

“It makes him responsible,” Lezin said. “He’s going to have to deal with that, but it doesn’t make him criminally responsible.”

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In an emotional argument to the jury, Deputy Dist. Atty. Andrew R. Flier agreed with the defense on one point: “What Mr. Coventry did was a foolish act, a stupid act.” And the prosecutor tried to distance Coventry’s trial from a recent case against Kevorkian, in which a jury ruled that the doctor was innocent.

Kevorkian helped people commit suicide “under the supervision of a medical professional, and those people were terminally ill--not just depressed,” Flier said.

But he took a tack familiar to those who followed the prosecution in the Kevorkian trials: Assisted suicide “is not a philosophical argument,” he said. “The Legislature has said this is a crime.”

The prosecutor compared Coventry’s defense that he was intoxicated that night, and that he thought Medina was just kidding, to Monday-morning quarterbacking, in which people second-guess the decisions that lost Sunday’s game.

Using handwritten charts to illustrate his points, Flier stressed that Coventry admitted what he did and that these actions clearly encouraged Medina to kill himself. One chart listed six other things that Coventry could have done, such as give Medina an unloaded weapon or call a crisis hot line.

“Mr. Coventry was just tired of listening to Mr. Medina,” the prosecutor said. “He was fed up. He told him to put up or shut up.”

Flier accused McDowell, Coventry’s girlfriend and a witness to the shooting, of lying during her testimony as part of a cover-up the pair plotted after realizing they were in trouble. He pointed to the numerous times McDowell answered that she could not recall certain events in an attempt to increase juror skepticism of her truthfulness.

A jury of nine men and three women will resume deliberations in the case this morning.

If he is convicted of the charge, Coventry would face up to three years in state prison.