Reid ex rel. Martiniano v. State

• Citation: 396 S.W.3d 478
• Decision Date: 24 January 2013
• Docket Number: Nos. M2009–00128–SC–R11–PD, M2009–00360–SC–R11–PD, M2009–01557–SC–R11–PD.,s. M2009–00128–SC–R11–PD, M2009–00360–SC–R11–PD, M2009–01557–SC–R11–PD.
• Parties: Paul Dennis REID, Jr. ex rel. Linda MARTINIANO v. STATE of Tennessee. and Paul Dennis Reid, Jr. v. State of Tennessee.
• Court: Supreme Court of Tennessee

396 S.W.3d 478

Paul Dennis REID, Jr. ex rel. Linda MARTINIANO

v.STATE of Tennessee.andPaul Dennis Reid, Jr.

v.State of Tennessee.

Nos. M2009–00128–SC–R11–PD, M2009–00360–SC–R11–PD, M2009–01557–SC–R11–PD.

Supreme Court of Tennessee,

at Nashville.

Oct. 3, 2012 Session.

Jan. 24, 2013.

Kelly A. Gleason and Bradley A. MacLean, Office of the Post–Conviction Defender, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellants, Paul Dennis Reid, Jr. and Linda Martiniano.

Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General and Reporter; William E. Young, Solicitor General; James E. Gaylord, Assistant Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

Christopher Brett Jaeger, J. Patrick Warfield, and Gregory D. Smith, Nashville, Tennessee, for the Amici Curiae, Jerry P. Black, Terry A. Maroney, Steven J. Mulroy, Christopher Slobogin, Jeffrey Usman, and Penny J. White.

OPINION

WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which GARY R. WADE, C.J., JANICE M. HOLDER, CORNELIA A. CLARK, and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined.

WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J.

This appeal raises the question of whether a prisoner facing the death penalty has the mental capacity to abandon the pursuit of post-conviction relief in his three murder cases. After the prisoner decided not to seek a new trial in any of these cases, one of his sisters, in cooperation with the Office of the Post–Conviction Defender, filed a “next friend” petition in each of the prisoner's three murder cases, requesting the courts to declare the prisoner incompetent, thereby enabling her to pursue post-conviction relief on his behalf. The Criminal Court for Davidson County and the Circuit Court for Montgomery County conducted separate hearings in 2008. Each court denied the petitions after determining that the prisoner's sister and the Office of the Post–Conviction Defender had failed to establish by clear and convincing evidence that the prisoner lacked the capacity to make rational decisions regarding the pursuit of post-conviction relief. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed both of these judgments. Reid v. State, Nos. M2009–00128–CCA–R3–PD, M2009–00360–CCA–R3–PD, M2009–01557–CCA–R3–PD, 2011 WL 3444171 (Tenn.Crim.App. Aug. 8, 2011). We granted the prisoner's Tenn. R.App. P. 11 application. We have determined that both trial courts employed the correct legal standard for determining whether the prisoner possessed the mental capacity to rationally forego seeking post-conviction relief and also that the prisoner's sister and the Office of the Post–Conviction Defender failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the prisoner lacked the capacity to make rational decisions regarding the pursuit of post-conviction relief. For the sake of consistency, we further hold that, in all future cases, Tennessee's courts should employ the mental competency standard of Tenn. Sup.Ct. R. 28, § 11(B) whenever the issue of a prisoner's competency to pursue post-conviction relief is properly raised.

I.

Paul Dennis Reid, Jr. is currently facing seven sentences of death. Two juries in Davidson County and one jury in Montgomery County convicted him of three sets of execution-style murders, of seven persons total, that occurred within a two-month period in 1997 at three fast food restaurants in Middle Tennessee.

Mr. Reid is also a human conundrum. On one hand, he is undeniably brain-damaged. A lesion on his left temporal lobe interferes with his ability to communicate and possibly compromises his grip on reality. Mr. Reid claims that he subscribes to a series of elaborate delusions in which he is the subject of constant government surveillance and remote mind control. He insists that his trials were mock trials, that the attorneys representing him were actors, and that his death sentence was actually a secret ten- to twelve-year sentence. In addition, he has claimed that he is engaged to a woman who his psychiatrists believe is a figment of his imagination. He has also displayed a penchant for making peculiar statements, particularly to his own legal team.

On the other hand, Mr. Reid has told several mental health professionals over the years that his delusions are actually an elaborate, self-serving hoax that he has successfully employed to avoid prosecution in the past. The question at the core of this case is this: Is Paul Reid a mentally ill man who tries to appear sane or a sane man who tries to appear mentally ill? Does he truly believe he is trapped in an Orwellian nightmare of government surveillance and thought control, or are his delusions more like an elaborate piece of performance art used to gain attention and to amuse himself in prison? Perhaps it is a bit of both. Paul Reid's psyche has proved to be a tough nut to crack.

The procedural history following Mr. Reid's convictions is labyrinthine. Mr. Reid's cases have presented more than one issue of first impression. This Court, the Court of Criminal Appeals, and the trial courts have been required to construct new rules and procedures along the way. Today, at a unique juncture in this litigation, all three of Mr. Reid's cases are before this Court. We granted his Tenn. R.App. P. 11 application because these cases will enable us to address and realign the standards courts use to determine the competency of petitioners seeking relief from a judgment under the Post–Conviction Procedure Act.

As the law now stands, Tennessee courts apply one standard for determining whether a capital post-conviction petitioner has the mental capacity to withdraw a previously filed petition for post-conviction relief. However, the courts apply another standard for determining a petitioner's capacity with regard to due process tolling of the statute of limitations for filing a post-conviction petition or for determining whether a “next friend” ¹ should be permitted to pursue post-conviction relief on the petitioner's behalf. While these two standards are worded differently, we have come to believe that they really are—or at least should be—asking the same question. Accordingly, this opinion enables us to articulate a single competency standard applicable to all phases of a post-conviction proceeding.

II.

Mr. Reid was born with hearing loss caused by a deformed ear. He had an unstable childhood.² After his parents divorced when he was three years old, Mr. Reid and one of his sisters continued to live with his father and paternal grandmother. He sustained head trauma on a number of occasions during his developmental period, including one occasion when he was hit on the side of his head with a brick.³

By the age of four or five, Mr. Reid was causing problems in the neighborhood and was seriously misbehaving at home. On one occasion, he set fire to his grandmother's bed while she was in it. On another occasion he beat his grandmother's dog to death with a baseball bat. Mr. Reid returned to live with his mother and his other sister after his mother learned that his father was planning to put him up for adoption. However, when he was sixteen years old, Mr. Reid was asked to leave his mother's house because he had attempted to sexually assault both his mother and sister. From that time on, Mr. Reid was basically on his own.⁴

Mr. Reid's brushes with the law steadily became more serious as time passed. His juvenile record included charges of automobile theft, simple assault, and check forgery.⁵ In 1982, he was charged with committing several armed robberies in Texas. He was never tried on these charges because he was hospitalized after being found to be incompetent. ⁶ In 1984, Mr. Reid was convicted in Texas of aggravated robbery. ⁷ The assistant district attorney who prosecuted Mr. Reid in that case testified that during these proceedings, Mr. Reid “performed antics” whenever the jury was present but “stopped ‘putting on’ when the jury was not in the courtroom.” ⁸ Years later, Mr. Reid bragged that he had “fooled the shrinks” to one of the psychologists who testified on his behalf in the three cases currently before this Court.⁹ He also told another psychologist that he had “faked delusions in the past.” ¹⁰

At some point, Mr. Reid moved to Tennessee to pursue a career in country music.¹¹ Even though he found employment at a Shoney's restaurant, he experienced financial difficulties. He discussed with two fellow employees how he could obtain money by robbing a fast food restaurant at night when there would be no witnesses, and he sought their assistance in obtaining a pistol. ¹² Despite his financial problems, Mr. Reid quit his job at Shoney's in early February 1997. He was given no severance pay and had no other job. ¹³

Early on the morning of February 16, 1997, Steve Hampton and Sarah Jackson were forced to the floor and fatally shot from behind as they were preparing to open the Captain D's fast food restaurant on Lebanon Road in Donelson. The restaurant was approximately 2.1 miles from the Shoney's restaurant where Mr. Reid had been employed. Approximately $7,000 was taken from the restaurant, as well as Mr. Hampton's wallet containing $600.¹⁴

On March 23, 1997, a McDonald's fast food restaurant on Donelson Pike in Hermitage was robbed at closing time. Three employees, Andrea Brown, Robert Sewell, and Ronald Santiago, were murdered execution-style. A fourth employee, Jose Ramirez Gonzales, would also have been murdered, but the assailant's pistol jammed. The assailant stabbed Mr. Gonzales repeatedly and left him for dead, after taking the contents of the restaurant's safe. Even though Mr. Gonzales was seriously wounded, he was able to call 9–1–1 for help. ¹⁵ Mr. Gonzales later testified as a key witness against Mr. Reid. ¹⁶

On April 23, 1997, the Baskin–Robbins ice cream shop on Wilma Rudolph Boulevard in Clarksville was robbed around closing time. When the authorities arrived, the two employees could not be found, but the cash register was open and the top of the safe had been removed.¹⁷ On April 24, 1997, the bodies of the two employees, Angela...