We're told that Robert Bacon Jr. wept with joy, relief or whatever when he got the news that not only would he be permitted to spend the rest of his life in prison, but -- more to the point -- the state of North Carolina no longer would see to it that his life fizzled on command at 2 a.m. some fateful Friday.

One can only imagine how David Junior Ward reacted to his Death Row compadre's good fortune. But he probably was conflicted.

By sparing Bacon's life with a noble grant of clemency, Governor Easley showed a full understanding of why governors are entrusted with such an extraordinary power -- so they can stop the execution of people who, all things considered, just don't deserve it. (OK, we knew Easley understood that principle in the abstract, but there's a difference between understanding the theory of how to ice skate, say, and being able to cruise competently along.)

There no longer was any doubt that the governor would commute a death sentence if the circumstances were right. What Ward had to be fretting about was whether he'd have a chance of becoming the second lucky clemency recipient in the short space of two weeks. After all, Easley might just decide to give this clemency-granting business a rest. Could be habit-forming, or something.

Ward, as it happens, is scheduled to be the next guest of dishonor in that little room of no return over in Central Prison. Next Friday will be his last, unless the courts -- where he's struck out so far -- or the governor say otherwise.

What did David Ward do to land in such a pickle? No surprise there -- he killed someone during a robbery. Or, he helped somebody else kill someone. Or, he was present at the murder scene, firing a weapon. At any rate, he was distinctly up to no good and Dorothy Mae Smith, who operated a Greenville convenience store, ended up dead. Hence a death sentence for the perpetrators.

Oops. . . make that perpetrator, singular. It turns out that the co-robber in the 1991 case, one Wesley Harris, went to trial first and drew life in prison. The twist is that, according to Ward, the whole thing was Harris' idea.

More than that, it was Harris who wound up with the robbery loot. There was no evidence that Ward had benefitted at all. And it was Ward who told the police what had happened. It couldn't be determined from ballistics tests who had fired the fatal rounds when Smith was ambushed, but evidently they all came from the same weapon; Ward claimed that he missed on purpose, which is probably what anybody would say, but it doesn't seem ever to have been proved that he was lying.

So, as happens too often in these pesky capital cases, we have a situation in which a dreadful crime has been committed, but the decision to impose a death sentence -- always a judgment call -- reflects an intolerable randomness.

Ward's appellate attorney, Marvin Sparrow of Durham, explained to me last year his theory of why his guy lost on the big coin toss: He couldn't keep a civil tongue in his head.

It seems that during the sentencing portion of the trial, when Ward's mother was being cross-examined in what the defendant took to be a demeaning manner, he let loose a burst of profanity directed at the district attorney. As Sparrow put it, cussing out the D.A. isn't ideal courtroom behavior, but it shouldn't be enough to warrant the death penalty when a life sentence -- go ahead and make it without parole -- would be perfectly fitting.

Easley will have the dubious pleasure of combing through such assorted details and arguments this week as he considers whether to establish an unprecedented two-in-a-row streak of clemency approvals. This may be a stretch, but I wonder if some other factors might cross his mind. For starters: There surely has been no shortage of killing lately, and there might have to be more. Is there something to be said for not adding to the body count any more than we really need to -- for example, if we need to do it elsewhere in defense of the country?

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