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How to find out more Here are some other sources of information on the death penalty and the mentally ill: • Death Penalty Information Center: The nonprofit organization provides information on issues concerning capital punishment. "Mental Illness and the Death Penalty" -- www.deathpenaltyinfo .org/article.php?did=782&scid =66#miresources. • The National Mental Health Association: The group provides information and supports reducing barriers to treatment and services. "Death Penalty and People With Mental Illness" -- www.nmha.org/position/deathPenalty/index.cfm. • Amnesty International USA: The human rights group opposes the death penalty. "The Death Penalty Disregards Mental Illness" -- www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/mental_illness.html.

Convicted killer Arthur P. Baird II's life was spared this week based on "unusual, probably unique" circumstances, according to Gov. Mitch Daniels.

But his act of mercy illustrates how governors can fill gaps in the law that permit the execution of people with severe mental illnesses, state and local experts say.

The U.S. Supreme Court has outlawed the execution of minors and mentally retarded killers. But the nation's high court has not directly addressed whether severely mentally ill inmates can be put to death.

Defense lawyers across the country are hoping the court will craft a standard for mental illness. Until then, they must appeal to the nation's governors.

"Commutation is meant for when the law hasn't caught up with society," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington nonprofit that provides research on capital punishment.

Baird's clemency request, which Daniels granted Monday, is unlikely to open any floodgates, said Larry Landis, executive director of the Indiana Public Defender Council, which helps coordinate appeals by Death Row inmates.

But it could contribute to an ongoing national debate on the death penalty and the mentally ill. Some groups and lawmakers already are talking about addressing the issue in the wake of Baird's case.

Daniels has allowed executions to go forward in other cases. Four inmates have been executed since he took office in January.

"What the Baird case shows is you've got a governor who's going to spend the time to look at each case individually," Landis said. "That's exactly what the system needs. Everybody should feel better that it's happening."

Daniels did not cite Baird's detachment from reality as his primary reason for commuting his death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But the governor spent considerable time weighing Baird's mental state before concluding he is probably insane in the ordinary, if not legal, sense.

"Governor Daniels is recognizing there are issues relating to mentally ill people that we need to give scrutiny to," said Sarah L. Nagy, Baird's pro bono lawyer.

But Nagy stopped short of saying Baird's case provides a road map for other Indiana lawyers trying to save the lives of their clients.

"It's not appropriate to draw conclusions from any one clemency decision," she said.

Baird recently was diagnosed as "grossly psychotic," harboring delusions about the Sept. 6, 1985, stabbing deaths of his parents, Kathryn and Arthur Baird. He also was sentenced to 60 years in prison for strangling his pregnant wife, Nadine, and eight years for killing his unborn child the day before his parents' slayings in Montgomery County.

Baird, 59, had never before been in legal trouble. He has maintained that a "big, burly man" controlled his actions and that God would intervene to stop his execution by turning back the hands of time.

Sentence commutations that mention mental illness in the 38 states with death penalties are rare. Dieter said he's seen only five, including Baird's, that specifically mention mental illness within the past 30 years.

But they are becoming more frequent as defense lawyers push to make schizophrenic and delusional killers the next group the law exempts from paying the ultimate price for their crimes.

"Mental health will increasingly be reviewed," Dieter said. "I think governors sense it's permissible to make these kinds of decisions. The death penalty is being debated everywhere."

Baird was the third inmate freed from Death Row by a governor within the past 50 years. Gov. Joe Kernan, Daniels' predecessor, spared the lives of two inmates during his 16 months in office.

Baird's case was distinguished by his lack of a prior criminal record, the relative unanimity among mental health experts regarding his condition and the lack of resources devoted to his defense at the time of his trial.

"The Baird case was, in a lot of ways, the perfect storm," said Paula Sites, deputy director of the Public Defender Council.

Daniels could face more difficult choices in future death penalty cases:

• Alan Matheney, who killed his former wife in 1989, is scheduled to be executed Sept. 28. Matheney, 54, was found guilty in 1990 of beating to death Lisa Marie Bianco, Mishawaka, while free on an eight-hour pass from the Correctional Industrial Facility near Pendleton. He was serving an eight-year sentence for a previous beating. His lawyers are arguing that mental illness should block his execution.

• Joseph Corcoran, 30, suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. He waived his state appeal rights and then tried to reconsider. Corcoran was sentenced to death in 1999 for killing four people in northeastern Indiana, including his brother and his sister's fiance. Like Baird, he declined a plea bargain that would have kept him in prison for life. No execution date has been set in his case.

Daniels' action on the Baird case has become part of a larger national debate regarding the death penalty, said Ron Honberg, legal director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, a nonprofit advocacy group in Virginia.

"There are lots of people like Mr. Baird and Joseph Corcoran on Death Row around the country," said Honberg, who's serving on an American Bar Association task force that's writing a new standard for courts and legislatures to consider.

Indiana law has already evolved in ways that benefit mentally ill defendants since 1987, when a jury convicted Baird. For instance, life in prison without parole is now an option.

Critics of capital punishment say further reform is needed to avoid a legal system that must rely on the mercy of governors to prevent executions of seriously mentally ill inmates.

Dr. Philip M. Coons, a professor emeritus of psychiatry at the Indiana University School of Medicine, said he was encouraging state lawmakers to look into creating a legal standard that would prohibit such executions.

Coons examined Baird last month at the request of Baird's lawyers and pronounced him mentally unfit to be executed.

"We in Indiana have a chance to be in the forefront of this rising tide of sentiment against executing the severely mentally ill," Coons said.

Call Star reporter Kevin Corcoran at (317) 444-2750.

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