Man with mental illness faces possible death penalty in 2015 Raleigh murder case
By Josh Shaffer
The News & Observer
RALEIGH- In April, Wake County prosecutors plan to start a death-penalty trial for accused murderer Kendrick Gregory, a Raleigh man whom doctors have diagnosed as acutely psychotic, court documents show.
His attorneys argued Wednesday that Gregory, 25, has deteriorated so dramatically in the Wake County jail that he cannot help with his own defense, answering all questions with a single word and declining to bathe.
They asked that his trial be delayed because Gregory refuses to take anti-psychotic medicine, which is his right, and returning him to a competent state will take several months at Central Regional Hospital in Butner.
“Kendrick Gregory is a severely mentally ill man whom the Wake County District Attorney’s office is trying to put to death,” attorneys argued in a February motion filed in Superior Court. “An April 20, 2020, trial date constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.”
Superior Court Judge Tom Lock will hold a hearing in March to decide whether the trial should be delayed and whether doctors can give Gregory the drugs involuntarily. In the mean time, Gregory will return to Butner.
In 2015, police charged Gregory with killing a pawn shop owner on Capital Boulevard, shooting a man at the Knights Inn on New Bern Avenue and raping a 15-year-old girl on the same night.
He fled to New York and was captured there in a car that had been reported stolen, then fought extradition to Wake County.
MCDONALD’S MEETING
His mother, Alicia Gregory, told the N&O that her son has suffered from mental illness since 2011, hearing voices and getting frequent treatment in Holly Hill Hospital.
Raleigh historian Aaliyah Blaylock also told The News & Observer that Gregory met her at a McDonald’s and asked her to pray for him. He could not stop sticking out his tongue, she said, and he felt like his legs were going into the ground when he walked.
In court filings, Gregory’s attorneys report doctors at Holly Hill diagnosed him with psychosis, schizoaffective disorder and other mental illnesses. Doctors at Central Regional judged him incapable of going to trial in 2017, then said they had restored his competency after Gregory was committed there.
But in August, the motion said, he began refusing to meet with his attorneys or answer their questions, emitting a “foul odor” when they met. Central Regional evaluated him again and called him “untreated or under treated for several months” while in Wake County custody.
It is believed Gregory could be restored to competency in a few months, attorneys said, giving them inadequate time to prepare for a death-penalty trial. Doctors at Central Regional recommend Gregory go back on anti-psychotic drugs to have his competency for trial restored, but Gregory does not want to take them because of the side effects.
DEATH PENALTY RARE IN NC
North Carolina has not executed a prisoner since 2006, and the death penalty has grown increasingly rare.
Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman’s office pursued a capital case against Seaga Gillard last year, sending the convicted murderer to Death Row.
The state now has 143 prisoners on Death Row, and Gillard represents one of three sent there in 2019, records show. Freeman’s continued pursuit of capital punishment makes her an “outlier” in the state, the nonprofit Center for Death Penalty Litigation has said.
Freeman said her office continues to pursue the death penalty in Gregory’s case because “course of conduct” is an aggravating factor, meaning, “not only was someone killed, but there was a series of other crimes.”
On the issue of competency and medication, Freeman said: “He’s been treated consistently. I think it would be our position he needs to follow his doctors’ advice.”
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