Greg Thompson is a black man who is scheduled to be executed despite the fact that he is so mentally ill that the State of Tennessee went to court and had a conservator appointed to make decisions on his behalf.
Greg Thompson is scheduled to be executed despite the fact that three psychological experts have recently determined that he is mentally incompetent and cannot understand his imminent execution.
Greg Thompson is scheduled to be executed despite the fact that racism and bad lawyering tainted the death sentence imposed by an all-white jury in rural Tennessee.
The Limits Of Decency.
For centuries, Western civilizations have agreed that it is cruel and inhuman to execute those who are insane. Sir Edward Coke, the great English legal scholar, explained that “when a mad man is executed, [it is] against Law, and of extreme inhumanity and cruelty, and can be no example to others.” In 1986, the United States Supreme Court concluded that it is fundamentally wrong for the government to execute those who are mentally ill (Ford v. Wainwright [1986]). Executing Greg Thompson would exceed these basic limits of decency.
Greg Thompson should not be executed because he is crippled by schizophrenia and delusional thoughts.
Greg Thompson’s guilt is not in question, but his sentence of death is deeply questionable. Greg Thompson kidnapped and killed Brenda Lane in Coffee County, Tennessee, on January 1, 1985. Mr. Thompson kidnapped Ms. Lane so that he could use her car to escape what he, in a delusional state, believed was a gang of Ku Klux Klan members pursuing him and his companion, a white teenaged girl. When he was apprehended the next day, he quickly confessed and directed police to her body.
There is no doubt that this was a horrible tragedy. Years ago, when Greg was still capable of moments of lucidity, he expressed deep remorse for the crime. Yet executing Mr. Thompson would only compound this catastrophe, for Greg Thompson is now profoundly insane. Tennessee Attorney General Paul Summers has admitted that Greg is afflicted with severe mental illness which prevents him from having rational thought. In fact, it is probable that early-onset schizophrenia prevented Greg Thompson from accurately perceiving reality and understanding his actions at the time of the crime. Bad lawyering prevented that argument from being made.
Today, it is clear that schizophrenia prevents Greg from grasping that the State of Tennessee is about to kill him for this crime. Unmedicated, as he was at the time of the crime, he hears voices, suffers from severe delusions, is often suicidal, has eaten his own feces, and does not appreciate that Brenda Lane is dead or that he is about to be executed (he believes that he can survive electrocution). Three distinguished mental health professionals have determined that even in his current medicated state Greg Thompson is incompetent. We believe the people of Tennessee do not want the execution of this deeply troubled man to be committed in their name.
Greg Thompson should not be executed because racism and bad lawyering taint his death sentence.
Greg Thompson was sentenced to die by an all-white jury selected after the only black considered for his jury was removed by prosecutors. Although it is wrong for prosecutors to exclude jury members because of their race, there are signals that this is precisely what happened in Greg Thompson’s trial. Mr. Thompson’s defense attorney testified under oath that the prosecutor had remarked, after removing the only black juror, “I hope they [the all white jury] fry that nigger.” Incredibly, Mr. Thompson’s attorney did not point out this alleged prosecutorial misconduct to the courts until years after the trial, and then the courts did not believe it had happened.
Mr. Thompson’s attorneys also made a fatal mistake when they failed to locate a psychologist who could evaluate Greg’s mental condition and refute the State’s argument that he was perfectly sane at the time of the murder. Instead, the only person who spoke about Greg’s mental condition was an industrial psychologist who testified that Greg would be a good worker in prison. This man had never testified in a capital case, and had been involved in only “three or four” serious criminal cases throughout his career. Judge Clay of the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that this failure by defense attorneys left Greg ‘virtually defenseless,” as though he were without any representation, facing the charges and a death sentence on his own. Thompson v. Bell (2003).
Under these circumstances, it is imperative that Governor Bredesen commute the death sentence of Greg Thompson to life imprisonment.
Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen has the constitutional authority to commute Greg Thompson’s death sentence. Presented with similar circumstances, governors across the nation have used their clemency power to prevent the execution of the insane. Governor Bredesen must be persuaded that it is his responsibility to do likewise.
Supporters
International Justice Project
National Mental Health Association
Tennessee Black Caucus
Click here to sign the Electronic Petition for Clemency