Reid granted stay of execution

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State Supreme Court denies Reid's stay of execution

Early Wednesday excution moves forward

The Leaf Chronicle

The Tennessee Supreme Court denied a stay of execution today for convicted murdered Paul Dennis Reid.

The Montgomery County Circuit Court and Nashville Court of Criminal Appeals had each denied a stay of Reid's Wednesday execution, saying they lacked authority to stay an execution date set by the Tennessee Supreme Court.

Reid's sister, Linda Martiniano, with help from Assistant Post-Conviction Defender Kelly Gleason, had asked for the stay and requested the case be sent back to the Montgomery County Circuit Court for a new determination of Reid's mental competency.

On June 13, Circuit Court Judge John Gasaway ruled that Martiniano had filed to make a threshold showing of Reid's incompetence.

Today, the Tennessee Supreme Court said a second attempt "has an insufficient likelihood of success ... to warrant a stay of execution."
Justice Adolpho Birch, however, dissented from the court's ruling, saying affidavits from Martiniano, Gleason and a neuropsychiatrist do "meet the threshold showing that would warrant a full competency hearing."

Reid has seven death sentences for the killings of two Clarksville Baskin Robbins workers in 1994 and for the slayings of five Nashville fast-food workers.

For more on this story, please see tomorrow's edition of The Leaf-Chronicle.

Originally published June 26, 2006

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Reid granted stay of execution

By Jared Allen, [e-mail]
June 27, 2006

U.S. District Court Judge Todd Campbell this afternoon issued a stay of execution for convicted murderer Paul Dennis Reid, indefinitely delaying — at least for the time being — the execution of Reid, which was scheduled for 1 a.m. Wednesday.

In response, the state of Tennessee immediately appealed Judge Campbell’s stay order to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Judge Campbell heard arguments this morning from Reid’s post-conviction attorneys, who had asked for his execution to be halted in order for Reid’s sister to receive a ruling about whether she has proper legal standing as a “next friend.”

If Reid’s sister, Linda Martiniano, were to obtain “next friend” status, she could continue to appeal the death penalty sentence on behalf of her brother, who has refused to file his own appeals.

“The Supreme Court has held that a ‘next friend’ may sue in place of a death-sentenced prisoner only when that person clearly shows that the prisoner is not competent,” Campbell wrote. “At the hearing on the pending Motion, the Movant presented testimony of an expert, Dr. George W. Woods Jr., and submitted other proof indicating that Mr. Reid does not have the capacity to appreciate his position and make a rational choice with respect to continuing or abandoning further litigation.”

“The State called no witness and offered no countervailing proof, expert or otherwise,” Campbell’s order continued.

[SoulTrainOz]

By SHEILA BURKE
Staff Writer


Citing the June 28 execution date set by the Tennessee Supreme Court for serial killer Paul Dennis Reid - whose death sentence was stayed Tuesday by a federal judge - lawyers with the state attorney general's office have asked a court to overturn the stay and said prison officials stand ready to carry out the sentence until midnight.

"Our understanding of the order is they can execute him anytime within the 24 hours that constitute June 28, so (the order) should expire at midnight," said one of Reid's lawyers, state post-conviction defender Don Dawson.

The state this morning asked the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court to overturn U.S. District Judge Todd Campbell's stay of execution.?

Campbell said Reid was entitled to a competency hearing and was prepared to go forward with the procedure on Monday. But when state lawyers said they wanted to wait until they had their expert, the Nashville federal judge said that would force him to stay the execution.

Reid's lawyers have argued that he is psychotic and shouldn't be put to death. Reid has given up his appeals. However, his sister is trying to take them up on his behalf, arguing that he is not competent to give up the legal battle.

Reid was one of two inmates scheduled to die today. Earlier this morning, the state executed convicted rapist and murderer Sedley Alley, who became the second inmate to be put to death in Tennessee in 46 years.


Copyright ? 2006, tennessean.com.?


www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060628/NEWS03/60628007/-1/RSS05

[falcon66]

I belong to another site that specializes in serial killers, and the news articles there allow for people to make remarks on the news flashes. Apparently, Mr Reid left two of his victims about 100 yards from a board members house.....if anyone would like the address to the site in question, pm me. There is also news there on the Railway killer execution as well.

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Reid won’t be executed tonight

By Clint Brewer, [e-mail]
Posted: June 28, 6:46 p.m. CDT

Convicted murderer Paul Dennis Reid has escaped execution yet again.

Tennessee Department of Corrections officials have just announced they have been informed the U.S. Supreme Court will not be acting to lift the stay of execution on Paul Dennis Reid tonight.

Corrections spokeswoman Dorinda Carter said Reid would be taken off of death watch and returned to death row, and that the prison would be taken off of lockdown at some point this evening.

“I know it’s been a stressful couple of days for everybody,” Carter said. “It’s been a roller coaster ride for the inmates and the staff.”

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Reid receives another reprieve

By Clint Brewer, [e-mail]
June 29, 2006

After an emotional and stressful day, convicted serial killer Paul Dennis Reid escaped death by lethal injection yet again.

Reid avoided execution Wednesday not once but twice with the aid of the nation’s highest courts, who appeared to agree with defense attorneys that questions remained about Reid’s mental competency.

Both the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court denied motions late Wednesday to vacate a stay of execution issued by local federal court Judge Todd Campbell late Tuesday afternoon.

Reid had been scheduled for execution at 1 a.m. on June 28. That execution time passed after Campbell’s stay and word from the Court of Appeals they would not hear the case until later Wednesday.

Prison officials had ordered media witnesses to gather at Riverbend Maximum Security Institute at noon Wednesday, suggesting Reid’s execution was imminent.

Tennessee Department of Corrections spokeswoman Dorinda Carter said late Wednesday afternoon Reid would be taken off of death watch and returned to death row, and that the prison would be taken off of lockdown at some point this evening.

She noted Riverbend Maximum Security Institute in Nashville had been in a lock-down mode for nearly three days, a hardship on corrections staff and inmates alike.

“I know it’s been a stressful couple of days for everybody,” Carter said. “It’s been a roller-coaster ride for the inmates and the staff.”

State officials were trying to preserve the June 28 execution date for Reid by fighting to have Campbell’s stay lifted Wednesday.

While Reid was having what may have been at the time his last meeting with his family around 3 p.m., Tennessee Attorney General Paul G. Summers filed a motion with the United States Supreme Court, asking the nation’s highest court to vacate the stay on Reid’s execution.

Reid had been granted a stay early Tuesday evening by Campbell. Summers immediately appealed that decision with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.

But without any word on how or when the 6th Circuit Court would rule on Reid’s stay order, Summers decided to appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Both higher courts denied the request to vacate the stay.

Since Reid was not executed on June 28, the execution order will expire, and the Tennessee Supreme Court will have to issue a new execution date. Reid was to have been executed along with convicted killer Sedley Alley on June 28. Alley was executed by lethal injection at around 2 a.m. Wednesday, Tennessee’s second execution in 45 years.

In addition to the stress from lockdown, Carter said TDOC officials were also taking “extra care” with the over-a-dozen family members of Reid’s victims to give them ample notice if and when the execution process had begun Wednesday.

“We recognize it has been a difficult time for the families and we will give them adequate time (to get to the facility),” Carter said.

She said that victims’ rights officers for the Tennessee Department of Corrections have been in “close contact” with the victims’ families.

Reid was convicted of seven murders in the Nashville area of restaurant employees during the 1990s — a notorious string of killings that terrorized the Middle Tennessee area.

Death penalty opponents claimed the Reid stay and the passing of his execution date as a victory Wednesday despite Alley’s execution note 24 hours prior.

“It is unethical to execute people with disabilities,” said National Alliance on Mental Illness director Sita Diehl in a joint statement issued with the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing. “Paul Dennis Reid clearly has a psychotic disorder.”

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Reid’s stay may keep him out of the death chamber forever

By Jared Allen, [e-mail]
June 30, 2006

Despite being only hours away from execution, Tennessee’s most notorious serial killer may not see the inside of the death chamber again for years — if he sees it again at all.

According to experts and those very familiar with the case, the key to Reid’s future was contained in an order handed down Tuesday afternoon by U.S. District Court Judge Todd Campbell, who granted Reid a stay of execution so he could get a federal hearing in regard to his competency.

“That’s a big deal at this stage of a death penalty case to be granted a hearing like that,” said Vanderbilt Law assistant professor Nita Farahany.

“If they actually find him incompetent for a next friend to be appointed, I think there could be a substantial delay in his case,” she said. “More than likely it would delay his execution indefinitely.”

Or it might not happen at all.

“He could be potentially years away, or it could be never,” Farahany said.

“You can’t execute somebody who is incompetent. So until his competency is restored, the state can’t execute him.”

Reid’s attorneys believe him to be incompetent, which is why they were pushing to have a court grant Reid’s sister status as a “next friend,” so she could pursue the federal insanity appeal against his death sentence.

Post-conviction attorney Don Dawson believes Judge Campbell will have the competency hearing and rule within a short period of time on whether Reid should be appointed a “next friend.”

“He’s probably going to be as prompt as possible without rushing it to judgment,” Dawson said. “If Judge Campbell decides he’s not competent, then we can proceed in federal court with a federal habeas corpus petition filed by Linda Martiniano.”

Not only will that take months if not years, the issue will have to be resolved one way or another before Reid’s case can return to the state level, and before the Tennessee Supreme Court can issue a new execution date, Dawson said.

“We believe that we have an extremely mentally ill client,” Dawson said. “Tennessee was in jeopardy of executing an insane person, and we feel every Tennessean should be concerned about that.”

[SoulTrainOz]

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld a federal judge's ruling to stay last week's scheduled execution of convicted murderer Paul Dennis Reid.

The ruling is essentially moot because the federal appeals court and U.S. Supreme Court declined to respond to motions by the state attorney general's office to execute Reid before his execution order expired at 11:59 p.m. on June 28.

(source: Associated Press)

[SoulTrainOz]

Reid's lawyers prepare for another fight in court


Lawyers for Paul Dennis Reid will return to court next week as they continue their efforts to remove the convicted killer from death row.

Reid was scheduled for execution June 28 but was issued a stay by the U.S. District Court in Nashville just hours before he was to die by lethal injection for killing 2 Clarksville Baskin-Robbins employees in 1997.

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the state's appeal of the stay on Friday.

It was a largely moot ruling Reid's execution order expired at 11:59 p.m. June 28.

Friday's ruling, however, did outline the parameters for procedures in the U.S. District Court in Nashville, where a full evidentiary hearing on Reid's mental competency will be held.

U.S. District Judge Todd Campbell has ordered a status conference for July 17.

"It will kind of set up some schedules or parameters," said Nicholas Hare, a state assistant post-conviction defender working on behalf of Reid's sister, Linda Martiniano.

Before a full hearing is held, the state will conduct its own evaluation of Reid's mental state. Martiniano acting in court as Reid's "next friend," has previously submitted an affidavit in District Court from a neuropsychiatrist who has diagnosed Reid with left-temporal lobe dysfunction.

This will not be the 1st time Campbell has ruled on Reid's competency.

In 2003 during procedures initiated by another sister of Reid's and also held hours before his execution Campbell found Reid had "knowingly, intelligently, voluntarily and rationally" ceased pursuing his own appeals.

During 90 minutes of testimony, Reid repeatedly told Campbell he was not mentally ill, and recalled all seven of his murder victims throughout Middle Tennessee by name.

Later that day, after his last meal, Reid did initiate appeals on his
behalf. He later reversed, again resigning himself to execution, opening the door for another sister to fight on his behalf.

The new hearings will once again determine if Reid is competent to cease pursuing his appeals, or whether Martiniano may do so for him.

If he is found to be incompetent, Reid who has already seen 3 execution dates come and go could see his death sentences commuted to life in prison.

(source: The Leaf-Chronicle)

[SoulTrainOz]

Reid, Alley Spoke Before Execution

A log released by the Tennessee Department of Correction outlined how convicted killer Paul Dennis Reid spent his time before an execution that never happened.

Last month, Reid was moved to death watch at the Riverbend Prison on June 25, 3 days prior to his scheduled execution.

The log recorded his every movement on death watch until he left the area following a stay of his execution.

According to the log, Reid spoke with fellow death watch inmate Sedley Alley on June 26. The floor monitor wrote that Reid said "Good Morning" to Alley. The 2 inmates went on to discuss another death penalty case where DNA evidence was called into question.

Reid visited with family members during the day, June 27, and ate a last meal of French toast and chocolate cake at 5:30 p.m. Reid then went to sleep just hours before his scheduled execution.

The log said that Reid was awakened at 1:26 on the morning of June 28 and moved to a visitation area. He arrived there at 1:55 a.m. and remained there until 2:40 a.m. It was during that time that Alley was executed.

When Reid returned to his cell, he asked if the air could be turned up, because he was getting hot.

Once the stay was issued, Reid was removed from death watch at 6:30 p.m. on June 28 and was put back on death row.

One other interesting notation from the log came from Reid's 1st full day on death watch. It was reported he became very upset after a discussion with the warden regarding lethal injection.

(source: NewsChannel5)