State responds to latest Thompson appeal

If a federal court wants to stop an execution to have more time to consider the case, it has the authority to do so, but in Gregory Thompson's case, that's not happened.

Tennessee Attorney General Paul Summers said so on Friday as he countered Thompson's argument that his execution should be delayed because his case is still being considered by a federal appeals court.

Thompson, 43, is the death row inmate condemned to die by lethal injection on Feb. 7 for the stabbing death of Brenda Blanton Lane nearly 21 years ago. Lane was a Shelbyville resident who was abducted by Thompson and his girlfriend to get a car so they could go to Georgia.

Lane, an employee of the United Methodist Publishing House in Nashville, was a former Shelbyville Times-Gazette reporter and the niece of the police chief here at the time. She was abducted in a parking lot across from the police station and killed in Coffee County.

Nearly two weeks ago, Michael Passiono, a Nashville attorney filing papers for Thompson, asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to postpone Thompson's execution until after federal court considerations were completed.

Passiono said the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals had directed the state to respond to Thompson's request for a rehearing. Because of that, the attorney claimed, the federal court had not completed its consideration of the case.

The Tennessee Attorney General's office acknowledged that assertion on Friday.

"He argues that this (state supreme court) should halt proceedings in the state court because the Sixth Circuit has 'maintained jurisdiction over the case' and 'is adjudicating and actively considering Thompson's case,'" according to a response from Summers with Associate Deputy Attorney General Jennifer L. Smith who filed the response with the Tennessee Supreme Court on Friday.

Proceedings toward execution should not be halted, the state attorneys said, because "The Sixth Circuit has entered no stay of execution or otherwise taken any action that would necessitate a different course…" the attorneys said.

Federal law gives federal judges authority to stop any state court proceeding in which the defendant's appearance is required, Summers and Smith said.

Therefore, if a federal judge saw Thompson's case as still on-going in their court, or subject to further review, "it could stay Thompson's execution …"

Nothing had been presented that justifies a delay in the state's steps toward execution, the attorneys said.

Passiono had sought a delay in the deadline for arguments, but his motion filed Nov. 7 did not include any justification for a decision by the Tennessee Supreme Court to delay Thompson's execution.

"Moreover, this court has already considered and rejected Thompson's contention that the setting of an execution date was premature, given the posture of the federal case," Summers and Smith wrote.

"Nothing in the present motion requires a different result and the current motion … should be denied," they said.

Passino and other attorneys have argued that Thompson's mental condition has changed and therefore he is not competent to be executed.

Tennessee's standard for competency preceding execution is low, according to several attorneys consulted in recent months. It only requires that the condemned know that the state intends to end his or her life, and that it is because of a criminal court conviction.

Thompson was convicted by a Coffee County Circuit Court jury, which also decided that he should be executed.