"Unauthorized and improper" steps have been taken in an attempt to prevent the execution of a confessed killer who's on death row for killing a Shelbyville woman 20 years ago.

That's according to Jennifer Smith, the associate deputy attorney general appointed by Tennessee Attorney General Paul Summers to deal with death penalty cases. Thursday, she responded to a doctor's statement forwarded to the Supreme Court.

At issue is the life of Gregory Thompson, 43, who was convicted by a Coffee County Circuit Court jury for the 1985 stabbing death of Brenda Blanton Lane, a former Shelbyville Times-Gazette reporter then working for the United Methodist Publishing House at its offices in Nashville.

She was a niece of Jesse Blanton who was Shelbyville's chief of police at the time. Because of that, Lane is well-remembered by this newspaper, the law enforcement community here and others. Some of her friends have said they believe she died while praying for Thompson's soul and her life.

Feb. 7 is when Thompson is scheduled to be executed.

Tennessee's Supreme Court has been asked to place Thompson's execution on hold so hearings may be held. It's also been asked for a recommendation to Gov. Phil Bredesen that he grant clemency.

Given case law, Thompson must only know that he's to be executed for Lane's murder, according to the attorney general's office.

Pleadings from Nashville-based Michael Passino and Federal Public Defender Dana C. Hansen have used an affidavit from Dr. Faye Sultan to make a case that Thompson is not competent to be executed.

Smith's replied that Sultan's report shows Thompson believes the Secretary of the Navy will prevent his execution and his involvement in Lane's death is a result of fate. Those views, however delusional, show Thompson knows he's to be executed, even though he supposedly thinks it will be stopped, and that the purpose of the plan to kill him is because of Lane's murder.

Now, Smith counters Sultan's supplemental affidavit saying that the doctor's "concern that her previous report was 'misinterpreted' ... is mistaken."

Rules of court procedure don't provide for the submission of Sultan's additional statement, Smith said Thursday. Furthermore, Sultan's submission was received by the court's officers without legal argument or statements from Thompson's appointed attorney. It arrived with a cover letter.

"Nor is it based on any additional observation or psychological evaluation of Thompson by Dr. Sultan since her previous affidavit," Smith said. "It is merely amplification of the first affidavit in an apparent attempt to cure legal deficiencies identified by the state's response...

"It would indeed be a curious judicial procedure that permits [a defense team] to mutate the evidence on which he relies in response to each successive pleading filed by the opposing party," Smith said.

Beyond that, "a retained expert may not 'reply' to a pleading in the place of appointed counsel," she said.

For those and other reasons, Smith said yesterday, the court should strike Sultan's latest statement from the record in Thompson's case.