Francis Mario Zito killed Queen Anne's County Sheriff's Deputy Jason C. Schwenz and Centreville Officer Michael S. Nickerson on Feb. 13, 2001, in Centreville, Md., when the officers responded to a loud-music complaint from one of Zito's neighbors. Zito shot the officers, at point-blank range, on the porch of his trailer with a 12-gauge shotgun.

The trial concluded last month in Salisbury. The jury found Zito, who has a long history of severe mental illness, guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced him to death. This case, like the case of Andrea Yates, sentenced to death for the murder of her five children in Texas a year ago, has raised many questions about trials, the law, juries, and the treatment of mentally ill people by our justice system.

The Supreme Court ruling last week possibly will have little influence in Zito's fate , because it focused on mental retardation, which Maryland already considers an exception. But should Zito have been found guilty at all under our current law? Should Zito have been found criminally not responsible? Cases such as this, in which a mentally ill person commits a serious crime are rare. But they illustrate how ill-equipped the justice system is to handle them.

There needs to be another legal option: guilty by reason of insanity, which would confirm a crime but treat the mentally ill differently.

Jurors in the Zito case were given only two options: They could find Zito guilty of first-degree murder (and related crimes), or they could find him criminally not responsible, Maryland's version of not guilty by reason of insanity. One of Zito's public defenders wondered "how the jurors could have ignored his well-documented history of schizophrenia." She also said, "We were not able to convey to the jury the way Zito really is, how horribly disabled he is. The jury didn't get that."

But the jury was well aware of Zito's condition, and they were well aware of their options. They could have found Francis Zito guilty, and therefore criminally responsible for his actions. Or they could have found him not criminally responsible for his actions due to his mental illness. In the latter, the jury would have to go down the following logic trail: Even though two brutal murders were committed, and no one doubted that Zito committed them, if the jury accepted insanity, it had to rule legally that the crime was not committed.

Is it any wonder then, that the jury ruled the way that it did? The jurors felt that they had no choice, and returned a verdict of guilty of first-degree murder.

But does it really fit? Does Francis Zito, a man with a long history of schizophrenia, a man who has been in and out of mental hospitals dozens of times, belong in the same legal category as a mafia boss who coldly plans a contract murder? Does he belong in the same category as a drug dealer who takes out a rival? This crime does not fit our normal definition of first-degree murder. There was no plan. There was no robbery. There was no long-simmering grudge between Zito and the policemen he killed. There was no discernible motive for the crime, other than Zito's mental instability.

What other conclusion could the jury have reached? They could have looked at the evidence and said well, yes, Zito is very seriously mentally ill. Yes, Zito probably did not fully realize what he was doing. Yes, Zito probably did not know right from wrong. Yes, he was, and is, probably insane. But if the jury had found Zito legally insane, and thus not criminally responsible, he would most likely be sent to a mental hospital, evaluated and put on medication. After some time, a board of doctors would meet and could very well determine that Zito has become stable, and is no longer a threat to society, and can be released to his home. A year or two afterward, the Schwenz and Nickerson families would still be grieving the loss of their loved ones, and Francis Zito could be home watching TV. And officially, no crime would have been committed! This possibility might be acceptable to some mental health advocates, and acceptable to some legal scholars. But, not surprisingly, it was unacceptable to the Zito jury.

In fact, juries are assessing these types of situations with laser-like accuracy and they are sending a message: We are not going to look at horrendous crimes and send the killer home with a pat on the back and a bottle of Prozac. We are not going to have more compassion for the killer than we have for the victims. We are not going to look at situations where clearly a crime has been committed and rule that legally a crime has not been committed.

We should have compassion for the mentally ill, and most of us do. But we shouldn't ask jurors to choose between compassion for mentally ill killers, and justice for victims and their families.

We need to have a plea option of guilty by reason of insanity. The Francis Zito case is the perfect case to illustrate how it would work. First, there is no disputing the facts of the case. Zito shot and killed Schwenz and Nickerson. Second, there is no disputing that Francis Zito is insane; ample evidence of that was provided in court. Third, the defendant would be found guilty of a crime. A guilty verdict would be recorded. Someone would be legally responsible. The difference would be in the punishment. In a case like this, the sentence would be a mandated life term in a mental health facility, with no chance of early release. Extremely mentally sick people would not be executed. They would not share jail cells with hardened criminals. They would live out their days in secure facilities for the criminally insane.

The victims and their families deserve no less than justice from the legal system. They need to know that killers will never be free to kill again.

A compassionate society needs to find more humane ways to treat the mentally ill who commit crimes, beyond the ruling that they should not be executed.

There is no question that, in this case, the mental health system failed. It failed Deputy Schwenz. It failed Officer Nickerson. It failed Francis Zito. But the study of the abnormal mind is not an exact science. It is in its infancy.

Psychiatrists and psychologists need to do a better job of identifying potentially violent individuals.

And our justice system needs better ways to cope fairly with mentally ill people who commit crimes. The plea option of guilty by reason of insanity would allow better service to justice and compassion.

Allan Bormel is a freelance writer who lives in Baltimore County.