Attorneys for Paul Reid have requested clemency from the Governor. There is a lengthy precedent of Governors granting clemency for those suffering from severe mental illness, and there is certainly no question that Reid falls into that category.

Paul Reid has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, schizo-affective disorder, and temporal lobe dysfunction resulting from grievous childhood abuse. He has lived in a persistently delusional state for the last 30 years, in which he believes that he is the target of a vast conspiracy by the "military government" which controls everyone he has been in contact with and experiments on him "like a rat" to deny him success and force him to commit crimes. He believes that he has been selected to breed with a millionaire's wife and that, were it not for the interference of the military government, he would be a wealthy lawyer at a big law firm in Houston. He even believes that he is being tortured by "scientific technology" and that the only way to escape this torture is to allow himself to be executed.

There can be no question that Paul Reid is severely mentally ill. In the U.S., we claim that we don't execute the insane, and yet Paul Reid sits on death watch, only 15 hours from execution.

Please immediately call Governor Bredesen at (615) 741-2001 or email him at phil.bredesen@state.tn.us Tell the Governor that executing a man as obviously mentally ill as Paul Reid is immoral and ask him to grant Paul Reid's request for clemency.