DATE: Thursday, May 8, 1997                 TAG: 9705080003

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B12  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   33 lines

MERCY KILLING A REASONABLE CHARGE

Virginia Beach Commonwealth's Attorney Robert J. Humphreys should be applauded for the prosecutorial restraint he showed this week in refusing to charge an apparently overwrought woman with murder in connection with the shooting death of her terminally ill husband.

Instead, Humphreys lodged a lesser charge against 67-year-old Florencetta Bassett: voluntary manslaughter.

Prosecutors often throw the book at people accused of crimes, even when there is a wealth of mitigating circumstances that indicate lesser charges would be more appropriate.

The tragic case of Mrs. Bassett is an example. Police reports point to a stressed-out caregiver driven over the brink by the demands of her 70-year-old husband dying of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Nursing someone with either one of these debilitating conditions would be taxing, but caring for someone with both infirmities would be unimaginably stressful.

On the other hand, the crime should not go unpunished. The world is full of long-suffering wives, husbands, daughters, sons and friends who quietly care for loved ones without complaint - and without shooting the patient.

By charging this accused woman with manslaughter instead of murder and by acknowledging that he had left the door open for a sympathetic jury to allow Mrs. Bassett to avoid going to prison even if she is convicted, Humphreys showed he has a heart - and a sense of perspective. KEYWORDS: MANSLAUGHTER MERCY KILLING

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