Mark Urban, chairman of the Governor’s Advocacy Council for Persons with Disabilities, has requested that North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley fully consider death row inmate Guy LeGrande’s request for clemency. LeGrande (pictured), who is scheduled for execution on December 1, has been diagnosed as psychotic and delusional.

“Mr. LeGrande was allowed to represent himself even though he believed near the time of his trial that Oprah Winfrey and Dan Rather were speaking to him personally through television sets,” Urban wrote. “It appears his mental illness made it impossible for him to get a fair trial.” LeGrande asked the jury at his trial to sentence him to death.

Several Eastern North Carolina pastors and bishops have also asked Easley to grant clemency, along with Carnell Robinson, chairman of N.C Black Leadership Caucus, and Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP’s national board of directors.
(News & Observer, Nov. 16, 2006). See Mental Illness. The American Bar Association and the American Psychiatric Association have called for an exemption from the death penalty for those who were severely mentally ill at the time of their crime.