MOTIVE CENTRAL IN KILLING OF WOMAN.

Byline: David Greenberg Staff Writer

VENTURA - Among the scores of murder cases Richard Holmes has prosecuted over the last 27 years, never has motive played such a prominent role in a case, he says, as in the fatal shooting of Janet Lindquist.

Earl Lindquist admits that he fired the .38-caliber shot that killed his 60-year-old wife in the bedroom of their Thousand Oaks condominium on Jan. 21.

But according to court documents, Janet Lindquist had pleaded with her husband for 90 minutes to fire the revolver and end the excruciating pain caused by a debilitating neurological disorder.

``Lindquist told us that killing his wife was `done out of love and mercy, not out of hatred and malice,' '' investigators wrote in court documents.

So now, for the first time in his career, the supervisor of the district attorney's Major Crimes Unit must decide whether to pursue murder charges in a so-called mercy killing.

``It goes to the state of mind of both the victim and the potential defendant,'' Holmes said. ``Obviously, those facts enter into the equation. It's a much more complex matter than A shoots B in a drive-by killing.''

So unique is this case that prosecutors - rather than his own public defender - asked a judge to at least temporarily revoke Lindquist's $500,000 bail and release him from jail on his own recognizance.

``In this instance, we did not feel he represents a threat to the community,'' Holmes said after the hearing. ``That's a highly unusual thing to say about somebody who has been involved in a killing.''

The judge granted the prosecution's request and ordered Lindquist to return to court Feb. 25, when he may be formally charged.

Assistant Public Defender Duane Dammeyer, who is representing Lindquist, said he has no comment until prosecutors decide what to do.

In the meantime, the District Attorney's Office will be consulting with prosecutors elsewhere who have handled similar cases, possibly even talking with those who pursued murder charges against Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who gained notoriety for helping others commit suicide.

California currently has no laws governing mercy killings, nor does it track the number of cases that have been reported or prosecuted, said Larry Brown, executive director of the California District Attorneys Association.

``I think it would be incredibly difficult to draft a statute that would not create a license to kill,'' he said. ``It would become a defense to homicides where the intent was not a function of mercy.''

That is one of Holmes' concerns, he says, in deciding whether to prosecute Earl Lindquist.

``When you're deciding a case, you have to keep in mind the moral imperative,'' he said. ``The purpose of the criminal law is to protect the public and uphold the law.''

Sheriff's investigators are not ready to classify the case as a mercy killing, but they acknowledge that Janet Lindquist had suffered from occipital neuralgia, a chronically painful disease, for at least two years.

She had been bedridden for eight months, with her husband and their adult son, Earl Lindquist III, providing around-the-clock care, officials said.

She had been reading ``The Final Exit,'' a book that details how to painlessly commit suicide, but had been unable to go through with killing herself, Deputy Phillip Galitz wrote in court documents.

``Janet tried to put the gun behind her head but that she was not able to operate the trigger with the gun in that position,'' the documents say.

So she pleaded with her husband for more than an hour to do it for her - using a gun that Earl Lindquist had bought for her protection, documents say.

Although this may be the first mercy killing that the county District Attorney's Office has confronted, Holmes said he does not believe it will be the last.

``I must say that with the ability of medical science to prolong life and the aging population,'' he said, ``I expect that it's going to be a greater problem in the future than it's been in the past.''