Press release from 1 April 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 1, 2004
Contact: Dana Hansen, Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee, Inc.
865-637-7979 for further details
INTER-AMERICAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION INSTRUCTS THE UNITED STATES TO PREVENT THE STATE OF TENNESSEE FROM EXECUTING SEVERELY MENTALLY ILL DEATH ROW INMATE
Yesterday the Inter-American Human Rights Commission of the Organization of American States requested the government of the United States to take precautionary measures to prevent the State of Tennessee from carrying out the execution of Gregory Thompson presently scheduled for August 19, 2004. The Commission stated that such measures were necessary for the commission to have adequate time to determine whether the United States, through the State of Tennessee, will violate the agreement it made in the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man by executing Mr. Thompson despite his profound mental illness.
Assistant Federal Defender Dana C. Hansen stated that the Commission’s action was a welcome acknowledgment that the execution of a human being, such as Mr. Thompson, who everyone agrees is seriously mentally ill, would be not only a violation of the common bounds of decency embodied in the United States and Tennessee constitutions, but also a violation of the United States’ promises to its friends and allies around the world.
Thompson, 42, was convicted in 1985 of the murder in Coffee County of 28-year-old Brenda Lane. Thompson stated he killed Mrs. Lane so that he could use her car to escape what he believed was a mob of Ku Klux Klan members who sought to kill him and his companion. Thompson’s trial attorneys did not present readily available evidence of his impaired mental state.
At trial, the state argued that Thompson was a cold-blooded killer who was faking insanity. Yet shortly after Thompson’s arrival on death row, prison doctors began treating him for mental illness with powerful anti-psychotic medication and have continued to do so for the past 18 years.
Supporters
International Justice Project
National Mental Health Association
Tennessee Black Caucus
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