Justices reject death-row inmate's request for competency hearing
Associated Press [as printed in The Tennessean 2004 05 13]
In mid-May the state Supreme Court upheld a lower court's ruling in the case of an inmate who is scheduled to be executed in August.
Lawyers for Gregory Thompson, 42, have argued that he is incompetent to stand trial.
The Circuit Court in Coffee County found that Thompson did not provide enough evidence to show that a hearing on the matter should be held. The state Supreme Court upheld that decision 4-1. Adolpho A. Birch Jr. dissented.
''Many of the exhibits, particularly the records relating Thompson's history of mental illness, are stale and thus not relevant,'' Chief Justice Frank F. Drowota wrote in the majority opinion. ''While Thompson's petition and supporting exhibits establish that he is mentally ill, these filings do not raise a genuine issue regarding Thompson's competency.''
Birch, however, said Thompson's history of mental illness and three experts' opinions were enough to warrant a hearing.
Two psychiatrists and one psychologist ''opined that the petitioner suffered from severe, ongoing schizophrenia, and currently 'lacks the mental capacity to understand the fact of the impending execution and reason for it,' '' Birch wrote.
Thompson was convicted Aug. 22, 1985, of abducting Brenda Blanton Lane from a Wal-Mart parking lot in Shelbyville, driving her to a rural area in Coffee County and stabbing her four times with a rusty butcher knife.
Lane, 28, was working in public relations for the United Methodist Publishing House in Nashville at the time of her death.
The state hasn't executed anyone since Robert Glen Coe in 2000. Since then, three other inmates have come within hours of execution before receiving stays.
