‘Mercy Killing’ Inmate Going Free : Euthanasia: Frail 81-year-old had come to symbolize the wrenching dilemma posed by the issue. Florida will free him five years into a life term.

MIAMI — Roswell Gilbert, who became the nation’s best-known “mercy killer” after shooting to death his ailing wife five years ago, was granted clemency Wednesday by Florida Gov. Bob Martinez and was scheduled to be released from prison today.

Gilbert, a frail, white-haired man of 81, has served five years of a life sentence he received after a jury convicted him of first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Emily, 73. He had come to symbolize the wrenching dilemma posed by euthanasia.

“He’s ecstatic,” said Gilbert’s attorney, Bradley R. Stark. “He’s thrilled to get out. Frankly, this has caught us all by surprise.”

Martinez and three Florida Cabinet members Wednesday signed the order commuting Gilbert’s life sentence, which carries a mandatory minimum of 25 years. “A just society is one that tempers the need for punishment with the compassion that is our hallmark as a people,” Martinez said. “Mr. Gilbert is in declining health, and the likelihood that his condition will continue to deteriorate if he remains in prison leads me to the conclusion that he should be granted clemency.”

“O Lord, it’s just wonderful news,” said Martha Moran, Gilbert’s daughter. “It’s just wonderful. I saw Dad last Thursday and he was doing OK considering the circumstances. I know he will be absolutely thrilled . . . at getting out, of course.”

Moran said she was returning to Florida from her Baltimore home to help her father resettle into the same Ft. Lauderdale condominium in which her mother died. Some residents were busy Wednesday planning a homecoming celebration for Gilbert.

Efforts to free Gilbert, who is blind in one eye and beset with a variety of ailments, gained momentum this month after the man who prosecuted him for the March 4, 1985, killing called for his release. Kelly Hancock visited Gilbert in prison last month and found a man who, he said, “has been punished enough.

“Clemency does not justify what he did,” Hancock said Wednesday. “He was legally and morally wrong, and I still have that feeling.

“But,” added Hancock, a county prosecutor for 13 years before entering private practice, “this was one case that bothered me. I received a lot of hate mail. I wanted to get to know the man.”

The man Hancock found--the man who walks out of the North Florida Reception Center near Gainesville today--is ill and confused, by all accounts. In a recent interview with the Miami Herald, he said he holds nightly telepathic talks with his late wife.

In addition to having lost the sight of one eye, Gilbert suffers from heart and lung disease, hearing loss and poor circulation that occasionally leads to fainting spells. A recent medical checkup found him “at high risk of death at any time” because of his age and physical condition, according to the physician.

A retired electrical engineer, Gilbert prides himself as being a dispassionate man of science. He often testified in criminal and civil trials as an expert witness.

During his own trial he seemed equally dispassionate, telling the jury that he killed his wife at her request, hours after they’d had lunch at a restaurant across from their home. “Please, somebody help me,” he testified she pleaded. “She was in pain and confusion.”

Martinez emphasized that the decision to free Gilbert did not mean he condoned his actions. “Illegal acts, including so-called mercy killings, cannot be overlooked,” Martinez said Wednesday, “and my decision in this case should in no way be seen as detracting from the fact that Mr. Gilbert is being punished because a jury of his peers found him guilty of first-degree murder. However, I am not oblivious to the fact that Mr. Gilbert is 81 years old and in declining health.”

Stark, who has campaigned hard to win clemency for his client, said that while he was happy for Gilbert, “I am disappointed that we didn’t win in the courts. But we ran out of time.”

Stark has charged that Gilbert’s trial attorney, Joe Varon, provided his client with inadequate counsel by failing to argue that Gilbert was severely depressed and incapable of knowing what he was doing when he shot his wife of 50 years, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and painful osteoporosis. But Gilbert’s defense was based on the concept of Emily Gilbert’s death as a mercy killing. And the jury rejected it.

Derek Humphry, executive director of the Hemlock Society, an organization based in Eugene, Ore., that provides information on euthanasia, said he has long urged clemency for Gilbert.