The Tennessee Supreme Court on Tuesday denied requests that would stop the Feb. 7 execution of a 43-year-old man who's been on death row 20 years for the stabbing death of a Shelbyville woman.

However, Gregory Thompson's Nashville attorney, Michael Passino, managed to keep statements in the condemned man's case file saying that his insanity has grown worse and so he's not mentally fit to be executed.

The high court reviewed an additional statement from Dr. Faye Sultan "out of an abundance of caution" while recognizing "possible procedural irregularities" arising from the doctor's statement being filed with only a cover letter -- without legal arguments.

Such are the latest developments in Thompson's case as two more deadlines were set this week for death penalty opponents and the State Attorney General's office that's charged with the responsibility of arguing Thompson's execution should be carried out as decided by a Coffee County jury.

Thompson is the confessed murderer of Brenda Blanton Lane who was working for the United Methodist Publishing House in Nashville when she was abducted from the Wal-Mart parking lot when it was facing the Shelbyville Police Department where her uncle was chief of police. Lane was also a former Shelbyville Times-Gazette reporter.

She was abducted to get her car so Thompson and his girlfriend could drive to Marietta, Ga. Thompson stabbed Lane to death with a rusty butcher knife near Manchester.

Monday, Passino told the justices that additional statements from Dr. Sultan should be left in Thompson's record because they should welcome all information on matters of life and death. The state had argued they should be stricken from the record because they were submitted in a manner that's not consistent with judicial procedure.

Furthermore, Thompson's lawyer said, while Jennifer Smith, the deputy attorney general assigned to death penalty cases, tried to limit information to the justices, the attorney general's office "has been surreptitiously gathering" from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution where Thompson is being held a great deal of information about Thompson's mental health.

That's been done on a weekly basis "without knowledge of or disclosure to" the condemned man's lawyers or the courts, Passino wrote to the high court. That information includes records of Thompson's disciplinary records, recordings of his phone calls, institutional education records and records on his medical treatment, the Nashville lawyer said.

On such an issue, Smith told the Times-Gazette on Oct. 1 that it would be part of her due diligence to be checking state records on Thompson. That was in response to a news question to her about assertions from the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing.

TCASK Executive Director Randy Tatel had said that schizophrenia prevents Thompson from understanding that the state is about to execute him for Lane's murder and that his madness has led to him eating his own feces.

"If they say he's doing that," Smith said, "I'll have to check with the prison."

The state isn't interested in executing someone who doesn't know what's happening, she said.

Nevertheless, the legal standard to allow execution is simple, according to the state's arguments. The condemned must know they're to be executed and why.

Passino said the reason for proceedings -- including a hearing he'd sought and was denied -- are to provide the last avenue of reprieve available to an inmate sentenced to death.

Beyond denying the request for a hearing, the Supreme Court denied: Requests that it reconsider its order setting Feb. 7 as the execution date; a motion to stop the execution; and a request for a certificate of commutation, a step toward taking the matter to Gov. Phil Bredesen who'd be asked for clemency.

Having denied the requests, the court set Nov. 18 as the deadline for any final statements regarding claims that Thompson is not fit to be executed. And, Dec. 2 was set as the deadline for the state's response to those final statements from Thompson's defense team.