At a press con­fer­ence on November 1, the North Carolina Black Leadership Caucus called for the gov­er­nor to com­mute the death sen­tence of Guy LeGrande. Le Grande is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on December 1. He was allowed to rep­re­sent him­self at his 1996 mur­der tri­al, despite the fact that he claimed to be hear­ing mes­sages from Oprah Winfrey and Dan Rather through tele­vi­sion sets. His defense lawyer, Jay Ferguson, said LeGrande false­ly believes he has already been par­doned and will receive a large sum of mon­ey. ​“The prob­lem is you have a men­tal­ly ill per­son rep­re­sent­ing him­self,” Ferguson said. ​“When his stand­by coun­sel asked the court to review his men­tal com­pe­ten­cy, the judge asked the defen­dant if he want­ed to do that and he said no. His response was to tear up the paper­work. So you’ve got a men­tal­ly ill defen­dant mak­ing the call on whether his com­pe­ten­cy should be examined.”

The Black Caucus also point­ed to issues of fair­ness and race in call­ing for a life sen­tence for LeGrande. The co-defen­dant in the case, Tommy Munford, paid LeGrande to com­mit the mur­der of Munford’s estranged wife. Munford, who is white, received a life sen­tence. LeGrande, who is black, was sen­tenced to death by an all-white jury. ​“The awful real­i­ty may be that as a soci­ety we val­ue White lives more than we do Black lives. We val­ue all human life,” said Rev. Dr. William Barber, State Conference President of the NAACP. ​“We want to stop the killing of our White broth­ers and sis­ters as well as our Black broth­ers and sisters.”

(Herald Sun (NC) (Associated Press), Nov. 1, 2006; NC NAACP Press Release, Nov. 1, 2006).

See Mental Illness, Race, and Arbitrariness.

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