Can a defendant be found guilty of assisting in the death of his wife by holding her head underwater until she dies?

In Bouse, the defendant's wife drowned in a bathtub; there was evidence that she had told the defendant she wanted to die and that he attempted suicide shortly after her death. On the evidence, the jury could have found that the defendant held his wife's head underwater, despite her struggles, until she died, thereby committing murder. On the other hand, the jury might have found that the defendant merely ran the water and assisted his wife into the tub, and was therefore guilty of only manslaughter under the Oregon assisting statute. In upholding the manslaughter instruction, the court reasoned that the latter statute "does not contemplate active participation[34 Cal.3d 436] by one in the overt act directly causing death. It contemplates some participation in the events leading up to the commission of the final overt act, such as furnishing the means for bringing about death--the gun, the knife, the poison, or providing the water, for the use of the person who himself commits the act of self-murder. But where a person actually performs, or actively assists in performing, the overt act resulting in death, such as shooting or stabbing the victim, administering the poison, or holding one under water until death takes place by drowning, his act constitutes murder, and it is wholly immaterial whether this act is committed pursuant to an agreement with the victim, such as a mutual suicide pact." (People v. Bouse, supra, 264 P.2d at p. 812; quoted in Matlock, supra, 51 Cal.2d 682 at p. 694, 336 P.2d 505.)