Inmate Gets Credit Against Sentence

{Frankfort, Kentucky}...A man found guilty of manslaughter but mentally ill in the killing of Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy 37 year old Floyd Cheeks could be released from the Kentucky State Reformatory in La Grange soon after the Kentucky Supreme Court on Thursday gave 46 year old Peter Bard credit against his 20 year sentence for time spent in a mental hospital before trial. A split high court ruled that the Kentucky Department of Corrections in 2008 improperly took away nearly four years of credit from Bard who fatally shot Cheeks, who was trying to serve an emergency protective order on Bard's brother, Ivan Bard, who wasn't home when the shooting happened. Online records with the Corrections Department listed Bard Thursday afternoon with a projected release date of January 26, 2012. Bard has been diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia and has either been in prison or a state hospital since his arrest in 1993. Bard was indicted on a murder charge that year, but was declared incompetent to stand trial on Sept. 12, 1995, and the indictment was thrown out. On Aug. 5, 1998, Bard was indicted again but 20 days later that indictment was dismissed for the same reason. Bard was indicted a third time in March of 2000 and went to trial in 2002, when he was found guilty but mentally ill of first-degree manslaughter.