Opinion ID: 1498881
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Reid v. State

Text: Paul Dennis Reid, Jr., was convicted of two counts of first degree murder for killing two employees at an ice cream store in Clarksville, Tennessee, in April of 1997. The jury imposed a death sentence for each conviction. This Court affirmed the convictions and the death sentences on May 24, 2005. State v. Reid, 164 S.W.3d 286 (Tenn.2005). On September 23, 2005, the Defender filed a petition for post-conviction relief challenging Reid's convictions and death sentences in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County, Tennessee. The petition was not signed by Reid, nor had the allegations in the petition been verified under oath by Reid. The petition asserted that the Defender's firmly held opinion and good faith belief was that Reid was mentally incompetent and unable to verify the petition or otherwise participate in the post-conviction action. The petition cited mental competency evaluations that had been performed on Reid in prior proceedings, see Reid, 164 S.W.3d at 304-06, as well as competency evaluations related to Reid's separate post-conviction petition pending in Davidson County, Tennessee. In that case, the Davidson County Criminal Court required a prima facie showing of mental incompetency before granting a full competency hearing. Although an interlocutory appeal from the Davidson County post-conviction court's order is now pending before this Court, see Reid v. State, No. M2005-00260-SC-S09-PC, that case is not squarely on point because it involves the issue of whether a post-conviction action may be prosecuted where the petitioner is allegedly mentally incompetent and not the issue of whether a post-conviction proceeding may be initiated without the signature or verification of the petitioner. Moreover, although the Defender filed a motion asking to be appointed as counsel in the present case, the motion was not accompanied by an affidavit of indigency or any allegation that Reid desired counsel. On September 29, 2005, the trial court granted a stay of Reid's execution and appointed the Defender as counsel for Reid. The trial court also stayed the action in Montgomery County pending the disposition of Reid's mental competency claim related to his post-conviction petition in Davidson County, Tennessee. The State filed an application for an extraordinary appeal pursuant to Rule 10 of the Tennessee Rules of Appellate Procedure. The State argued that the trial court lacked the authority to consider the petition because the petition had not been signed or verified under oath by the petitioner. The State also argued that the trial court failed to make any findings that provided a basis for the Defender to file the petition on behalf of Reid as next friend and that there had been no showing of Reid's mental incompetence. The Court of Criminal Appeals denied an extraordinary appeal, finding that the post-conviction trial court had not so far departed from the accepted and usual course of judicial proceedings as to require immediate review. See Tenn. R.App. P. 10. We granted the State's application for extraordinary review and thereafter consolidated the appeal with Holton v. State.