Fitzsimon File

Now that the election is just a week away, here’s something to ask the candidates for the General Assembly before you decide how to vote. Do you believe the State of North Carolina should execute a man who is clearly mentally ill and indisputably did not receive a fair trial?

The question is important not just because legislation will be introduced in 2007 calling for a two-year suspension of executions to allow an in-depth study of the way capital punishment is administered in North Carolina.

It is important because the state IS planning to execute a mentally man who was denied his constitutionally guaranteed right to a fair trial. His name is Guy LeGrande and his story is a case study for most of the problems that continue to plague the capital punishment system in the state including race, the misconduct of prosecutors, and the arbitrariness of death sentences.

LeGrande is African-American and was sentenced to death in 1996 by an all-white jury for the murder of Ellen Munford in Stanly County.  The victim’s estranged husband hired LeGrande to commit the crime and received a life sentence after being allowed to plead guilty to second-degree murder. 

The prosecutor in the case, Ken Honeycutt, is now under investigation for hiding important evidence in another death penalty case. Honeycutt is known for wearing a lapel pin in the shape of a noose and handing out the pins to his assistants who won death penalty cases.

Many opponents of a moratorium on executions continue to dispute all those claims in this and every case in which they arise, dismissing the role of race even when it is explicitly present and refusing to even acknowledge the problems with the conduct of prosecutors, much less hold the prosecutors accountable for their actions.

But this case is different. No one can dispute that LeGrande is seriously mentally ill and that he did not receive a fair trial because he was allowed to defend himself.  He wore a Superman t-shirt while presenting his defense and believed he was receiving signals from celebrities through his television. He often rambled incoherently and at one point, he told the jury to kiss his a__.

When the judge asked LeGrande about a motion filed by standby attorneys claiming he was not competent to defend himself, LeGrande ripped the motion in half and the judge let the trial continue.

Doctors have concluded that LeGrande suffers from psychosis that includes persecutory delusions. He was allowed to continue as his own lawyer as his case made its way through the appeals process. A federal judge finally appointed lawyers to represent LeGrande but it was too late to raise many of the issues that affected his trial.

Yet the State of North Carolina, through Attorney General Roy Cooper’s office, continues to push for LeGrande’s execution, which is scheduled for December 1.  

You can be for the death penalty. Maybe you can have reservations about some of the objections raised about the administration of capital punishment in the state. But that’s not what LeGrande’s case is about.

It all boils down a very simple question for Governor Easley and other state officials and candidates for public office. Are you going to stand by and allow the state to execute a mentally ill man who did not receive a fair trial?   

 

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 30th, 2006 at 10:18 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.