Wendell Will

Mercy on Trial Wendell Will

The placid life of retired professor David Neal is turned upside down when Lu, his wife of fifty years, is felled by a stroke and lies in an irreversible coma. David is presented with the terrible dilemma that could happen to any of us. Should he order his beloved Lus respirator turned off, ending her hopeless life? After a tortured inner struggle, David overcomes his doubts. But the doctors are blocked by David and Lus determined daughter, a federal judge, who will not consent to the murder of her mother. In a dramatic bedside scene David defiantly ends Lus life himself. The ambitious prosecutor with an eye on the governorship charges David with murder. David is represented without fee by a wizened attorney whose own wife suffered from an incurable disease. The headline-grabbing trial explores the moral, legal and psychological issues of mercy killing. Readers will not be able to stop turning the pages as one unexpected development after another leads to a surprising ending. Wendell B. Will, an experienced trial attorney, shows us first hand the maneuvering within the judges chambers, the fast moving drama of the trial and the tumult of the jury deliberations.