State Supreme Court OKs Baird execution

INDIANAPOLIS - Death-row inmate Arthur Baird II is competent to be executed as scheduled next week for killing his parents in 1985, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday.\nThe state's high court ruled 3-2 against a stay of execution, saying evidence presented on Baird's behalf did not meet a test set out in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. That ruling barred states from executing people who are insane, defined as being unaware of the punishment about to be received and the reason for that punishment.\n"He may be denying to himself that it will actually occur," the Indiana justices said. "He may have mental illness. But read as a whole, the evidence presented amply shows Baird knows he is about to be executed because he murdered his parents."\nThe Indiana Parole Board voted 3-1 Wednesday to recommend that Gov. Mitch Daniels deny clemency for Baird, 59, of Darlington, Ind. Baird is scheduled to die by chemical injection Aug. 31 for killing his parents, Kathryn and Arthur Baird. He also was sentenced to 60 years in prison for killing his pregnant wife, Nadine. He killed her the day before his parents' slayings.\nSarah Nagy, an attorney for Baird, said Baird was clearly insane and she planned to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.\n"What this case boils down to and what it has always boiled down to is how we as a society are going to treat our mentally ill," Nagy said.\nPolice said Baird confessed to the killings, saying he had gone "berserk" and had believed the federal government was about to pay him $1 million for advice on solving the national debt. He had planned to buy a farm for $575,000. But the money never arrived, and Baird was in debt and had been laid off from a factory job.\nPhil Coons, a forensic psychologist, told the parole board Baird had been sexually molested as a child and developed mental illnesses that included delusions and an obsessive-compulsive disorder. Coons said Baird was under intense stress, heard voices and felt possessed when the killings occurred.\nBaird told the parole board he felt "two beings" manipulated his hands as he strangled his wife in their mobile home. He said he didn't see any beings the next day but believed he was being controlled again when he fatally stabbed his parents.\nAttorneys and a clinical psychologist argued in this latest appeal that Baird was not competent because he believed God would turn back time and bring the victims back to life. The appeal also said Baird believed a "big burly man" moved his arms during the murders, so he was unable to experience culpability or fully understand the nature of the penalty.\nBut the high court said Baird's references to God turning back the clock and other claims indicated he was aware that he was to be executed because he had committed murder.\nJustices Theodore Boehm and Robert Rucker dissented from the majority ruling, saying the meaning of "insane" had not been definitively addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Boehm said attorneys had cited facts that "at the very least lead one to conclude that Baird is only marginally in touch with reality."\nBoehm said Baird had shown a "reasonable possibility" that he may be insane and should be allowed to pursue further litigation to make that case.\nBarring a late, favorable court ruling or clemency by Daniels, Baird would be the fifth person executed in Indiana this year.