Murderer ruled unfit mentally to die for crime

[WhiteFeather]

IF he is REALLY guilty of murder, why does the courts have to let him live another day?

Are tax payers going to have to spend thousand more dollars clogging the justice system with more hearings, paying for doctors to rehabilitate this guy then to execute him?

What’s the point?

There are many 1st time offenders that could be rehabilitated from a life of crime, if resources were not wasted on criminals like this one.

Murderer ruled unfit mentally to die for crime

Convicted murderer Guy LeGrande, who baited Stanly County jurors with expletive-filled rants during his 1996 trial, is too mentally ill to be executed, a judge has ruled.
Despite the order, LeGrande remains under a death sentence, according to the N.C. Department of Correction. It's unclear how or when the disagreement about his status as a death-row inmate and the order barring his execution will be resolved.

The order, received by defense attorneys Tuesday, was limited to LeGrande's mental competency.

Superior Court Judge Robert Bell said in his order last week that LeGrande is delusional and it "interfere[s] with his appreciation of the nature and object of the proceedings against him."

LeGrande, 49, was sentenced to death for the 1993 shooting of Ellen Munford, whose estranged husband recruited LeGrande to commit murder. Tommy Munford, who is serving a life sentence for second-degree murder, offered to pay LeGrande $6,500 from the $50,000 in life insurance proceeds he expected to get, according to court documents.

In July 1993, LeGrande shot Ellen Munford twice in the back.

At trial, LeGrande acted as his own attorney, wearing a Superman T-shirt during the proceedings. He told jurors that "hell ain't deep enough for you people," according to reports of the trial.

The jury sentenced LeGrande to death, and his execution was scheduled for Dec. 1, 2006. But it was delayed because the judge wanted three psychiatrists to determine LeGrande's competency.

Last year, Bell heard from three mental health experts during a two-day hearing. The attorneys for the state, LeGrande's attorneys and Bell each chose their own experts for the hearing. Experts used by LeGrande's attorneys and the judge found him mentally incompetent; the state's expert found him mentally ill but competent.

For now, LeGrande will avoid execution. Executions in North Carolina have been on hold because of legal challenges. It's unclear when executions will resume.

LeGrande's attorneys, Jay Ferguson and James Monroe, both of Durham, welcomed the order.

"He's been mentally ill for years," Ferguson said. "He thinks he's going to be pardoned. It's very frightening to consider how close Mr. LeGrande was to being executed."

Ferguson said there are still several unresolved issues in the case. "We have to see how his mental illness affected the trial proceedings," Ferguson said.

District Attorney Michael Parker, whose office prosecuted LeGrande, declined to comment, saying he hadn't seen the order. Noelle Talley, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Roy Cooper, said the office, which argued that LeGrande should be executed, had not received the order.