Proper pause

A Stanly County judge wisely slowed the execution of a man who appears unstable and whose trial was beset by legal questions

It shouldn't take the American Bar Association and American Psychiatric Association to make the case that executing mentally ill people is wrong, but fortunately those two professional groups have done just that.

Meanwhile, Central Prison inmate Guy L. LeGrande faced a trip to the death chamber Friday, despite strong indications that he suffers from mental illness (the latest coming from a defense psychiatrist who recently examined LeGrande's records and concluded that he is psychotic). So Stanly County Superior Court Judge William R. Bell did the common-sense thing yesterday in granting a 60-day stay of LeGrande's execution.

Bell's order allows psychiatrists to evaluate LeGrande, or to observe him if he refuses to be interviewed, and report their findings to the court. One of LeGrande's lawyers doubts that he will agree to be interviewed since he believes Governor Easley has pardoned him and that he stands to receive billions of dollars from the state. If the lawyer, Jay Ferguson of Durham, is correct, Bell's ruling represents level-headed compassion.

The state presumably could appeal Bell's ruling, but it shouldn't. It is in the interest of justice that LeGrande's mental condition be evaluated, and a 60-day stay is hardly excessive.

Despite facing a capital murder charge, LeGrande insisted on representing himself at his 1996 trial. He wore a Superman T-shirt to court, and urged the jury to sentence him to death. Prosecutors say it was all an act, but certainly his cavalier approach to life and death deserves a separate examination by the courts.

None of this is to downplay the crime for which LeGrande, 47, was convicted, or to question his involvement. He was sentenced for the 1993 murder-for-hire of Ellen Munford of Stanly County. Her husband, Tommy, had offered to pay LeGrande from the proceeds of his wife's life insurance policy.

But Tommy Munford, one of two witnesses against LeGrande, cooperated with authorities and was convicted only of second-degree murder. He could be paroled next year while LeGrande has faced death, a troubling disparity. The local prosecutor at the time, Kenneth Honeycutt, has a cloud over him as well. The N.C. State Bar charged him with misconduct in another death row case in which the prisoner said information about a deal was withheld.

And yesterday, The N&O's Andrea Weigl reported that LeGrande's death-penalty lawyers have uncovered documents indicating that the second key witness, who testified that LeGrande had confessed to the killing, may have been paid $3,500 for her testimony. Prosecutors said at the time that the witness, Barbara Taylor, was paid just $200.

Questions remain about how much of that information was disclosed to the defense, as it should have been. But since LeGrande was defending himself, it's also doubtful that he would have been capable of using the information to his proper advantage in challenging the witness's credibility.

LeGrande has resisted others' attempts to save his life. So his post-conviction lawyers have not had the time usually afforded in such cases to mount an effective appeal. Only last month did they stumble on the evidence about the possible payments to Taylor. Regardless of the outcome of the psychiatric exam, North Carolina's tradition of justice requires that LeGrande's lawyers be given the time to determine if prosecutors gained a death sentence when one wasn't warranted.