Aug. 10, 2008
Insanity On Death Row
Mentally Ill Prisoner Who Murdered Woman In 1985 In Tennessee Could Be Executed
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Fight For Life On Death Row
Gregory Thompson is on death row but his lawyers say he is mentally ill and the execution of an insane person is unconstitutional. (This segment was first broadcast on Nov. 11, 2007.)
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Gregory Thompson (CBS)
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In Your Head
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When it comes to prisoners on death row who are insane, the law is very clear: you cannot execute them. The Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional and deemed it "cruel and unusual punishment."
But can medication make a prisoner sane enough to be executed? As we first reported last year, that question is being asked in the case of convicted killer Greg Thompson.
As correspondent Lara Logan reports, Thompson was originally found competent to stand trial, but prison doctors have concluded he is mentally ill and they give him medication every day.
Thompson's lawyers are going back to court this fall and will argue that he is still insane on the medication, which he was taking the day 60 Minutes met with him.
Thompson told Logan he had to stab his food to eat it. "Especially eggs. They be popping up," he said. "Hit me in the face. You got to stab it. And then you gotta eat it quick. Real quick."
60 Minutes met Thompson inside a maximum security prison in Nashville.
He has been diagnosed as schizophrenic and psychotic by both prison doctors and those hired by his lawyers. And he has been medicated by the state for most of his 23 years on death row. Thompson receives a daily cocktail of anti-psychotic mood-stabilizing pills, and injections twice a month.
Asked if he knows why he's getting medication, Thompson told Logan, "Yeah, I’m nuts."
He says he only takes 10 pills a day now.
"What happens if you don’t take them?" Logan asked.
"I go lulu," Thompson replied.
"Tell me what going lulu is for you," Logan asked.
"In a few days I would like lose my mind and it would be trying to explode on me," he replied. "I got in a fight with the guards a lot of times, you know. Tried to kill a few."
"Did you kill any of them?" Logan asked.
"No," Thompson said. "But at the time they was turning into insects. And I wanted to kill them."
"The guards were turning into insects?" Logan asked.
"Yeah, they were giant insects," Thompson said. "They was acting just like the guards, but they were aliens. And I had to kill the aliens. They were attacking the world."
A psychologist who has been evaluating Thompson for nine years says he sees, hears and smells things that aren’t there, and suffers from extreme paranoid delusions and hallucinations.
But when Thompson was put on trial in 1985, his lawyers did not raise insanity as a defense. He confessed, was convicted and sentenced to death for killing Brenda Lane. She was 28 years old, well-liked in her community and she had been married just a few months.
The facts of what happened on New Year's Day in 1985 have never been in dispute. Thompson and his girlfriend, a juvenile, wanted to get from Tennessee to Georgia, so they kidnapped Brenda Lane, stole her car and then drove around for an hour and a half on remote country roads, as Thompson searched for a place to kill her.
They stopped along a rural country road near a field. Thompson then stabbed Brenda four times in the back and drove off, leaving her to die alone in the cold and the dark.
Produced By Tom Anderson
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See all 126 CommentsExecuting the mentally ill is something that we Americans excel at- not unlike Nazis.
"Executing the mentally ill is something we Americans excel at- not unlike Nazis."
Let''s also not forget the medical experiments that were carried out on unsuspecting members of an ethnic minority, just as the Nazis did.
In the 1930s, many Southern African-Americans were intentionally infected with syphilis so that the progress of the disease over the decades could be studied.
If we didn''t allow people to quit school and live and express theirselves so under-educated, fewer people would be disestablished and entering the criminal justice system.
I would rather use my taxes to pay for schools and keep people there rather than pay for courts, prisons and execution chambers.
How many times will we fail to see how depriving a person from education leads to increased crime and mental disease?
I do favor FCC mandates to impose censorships of broadcasts that glamorize, patronize, or encourage a person to accept under-educated lifestyles.
I also favor abolishing a students legal right to quit school. Even the most expensive Alternative School is cheaper than a prison and staff used to house convicts scheduled for executions.
I can''t understand why fundamentalists want to cut taxes and deprive people of education and build more prisons. What''s wrong with this picture?
His attorney, Wesley Serra, told Judge Mukasey that Alvarez was a man of limited perception who was "predisposed to join anything that made him feel important."
Judge Mukasey observed, "People who are killed by people with limited capacity are just as dead."
Mukasey is now the Attorney General. And I agree fully with his assessment.
Just because an inmate is being given psychotropics does not mean he is insane now (nor does it mean he was insane at the time of the crime). Perhaps the doctors are prescribing these medications to avoid further assaults by this man on prison staff.
"People who are killed by people with limited capacity are just as dead."
Eric
I do not like when people claim to be Christians , then sit and watch someone murdered. The sister is psychotic too. Her sister has been dead 22 years now. let the higher power handle this and move on.
If doctors are prescribing meds like this, then obviously the man needs them. Im not ruling out that he was insane at the time of the murder, but let the courts and doctors rule that out.
All you Christians got that???
Pensacola88,
Re: "I can''t understand why fundamentalists want to cut taxes and deprive people of education and build more prisons."
Well, they can''t legally lynch people anymore. I think that they view these methods as the next best thing.
Who would Jesus execute?
All you Christians got that???...Posted by ladyephesus1---------------Yeah, we should all just let you atheists, agnostics and wiccans become our spiritual advisors. Where do I sign up?
Pensacola88-------------What are you mixing with your Metamucil?
Lakeith Amir-Sharif ("Sharif")
Making The Walls Transparent
Texas Chapter (MTWT-Texas)
www.angelfire.com/crazy4/texas
Columbiabro--- she never said "I''m a christian I''m a Christian, really I am, but we must, we must kill him!" So quit putting words in her mouth, ok thanks:) get your facts straight and find something better to do with your time.
ladyephesus--- The sister is not psychotic and how is somebody suppose to move on when people like you talk about it like you know what happened and you know something about it.
usmcvn---- Don''t you think you might be mentally ill if you killed an innocent person for no reason at all and sat in jail for 22 years and had time to think about it? It''s not her fault he''s crazy or anyones fault but his own. Why should we pay to keep him alive and pay for all his medicine and food when he took the life of another.
Spectrum108--- Well it really is beside the point that he is mentally ill now he was fine when he commited the crime and it didn''t really seem to bother him that he was killing someone innocently. So just because he is crazy now does not mean we should pay to keep him alive. It''s not like we set out to have him killed because he is now mentally ill it has nothing to do with that in my eyes. It has to do with the fact that he is a murderer and he deserves to be punished and thats that. exceptions aren''t made for something like this if he did it he has to pay for it reguardless of his mental state at this PRESENT time.
This is one of the lamest excuses for a 60 minutes segment I have ever seen. The producer that allowed this segment on air should be fired. Of all of the unjustified death penalty cases out there. This seems to be one of the weakest I have heard of. But then I don''t think insanity as a defense, is resonable either. I think anyone who kills another person, is by definition insane.
All in all, the piece as presented was totally devoid of any informational or news value. Cannot CBS afford to have some psychiatric consultation about such a piece, so they could at least provide some reasonable information instead of the nonsense that this piece is? Such "news" goes a long way to maintaining the stigma and lack of understanding that continues to pervade questions of psychiatric illness. I would think CBS could do better.
But then again, maybe not.
Being that Jesus is also God, and God created the universe and the laws that run it, created human beings and laws for their existence, and He also was the one that made it a law to execute all killers with the intent to murder in cold blood, then, yes, Jesus would execute him. Just because we live in the 21st Century doesn''t mean that the Laws of God have changed. People change, not God.
Putrid!
As to whether or not he was insane, if that was a viable defense, it is difficult to believe the original attorneys would not have argued it.
Thompson knows what he did, he was found to be sane at the time of the murder and throughout the trial, so the punishment should be carried out. As Christians, our God is a God of love, but he is also a God of justice.
The expose on 60 minutes tonight does little to convince me, this person merits mercy.
The expose on 60 minutes tonight does little to convince me, this person merits mercy.
The expose on 60 minutes tonight does little to convince me, this person merits mercy.
What is the difference now?
The expose on 60 minutes tonight does little to convince me, this person merits mercy.
I know I picked up on his lies. He tried to keep himself from smiling. His eyes do not convey the impressions of an insane man. This is a very intelligent man trying to play the insanity card to save his life. Well, people are LETTING him play it. It is a guarantee that they all know too, from the jailers to the judge, to the governor, to the psychiatrist that treats him. They say they can''t tell that he''s lying, but they can, just like the rest of us can.
We need to support our judicial system. Stop wasting tax dollars!!!! It is apparent, after years he can still remember everything about this murder. Then have a conversation about writing songs, receiving payment for these song and sending that money to his victims family. Come on Lawyers--wake up...You are the insane ones. He is guilty. The tax payers have paid enough to feed, cloth, provide healthcare, even education?????.(maybe he is so good that he is making some lawyers believe he is insane)Death is his punishment and should be carried out. Lawyers stop the INSANITY. Lawyers are CRAZY!!!!. He is a killer...
How can we in good conscience put a man to death because he suffers from a disease w/ side effects. Thank you for those who are trying to keep from killing him and compounding this tragedy. Again I am so sorry for the victim and her family.
How dare he feel anything??!
"He has been medicated by the state for most of his 22 years on death row. Thompson receives a daily cocktail of anti-psychotic mood-stabilizing pills, and injections twice a month."
He receives a daily cocktail of anti-psychotic mood-stabilizing pills?
If Mr. Thompson is indeed on all that medication to modify his alleged schizophrenia and psychotic disorders than he obviously is sane enough to take responsibility for his admitted crime.
Whereby qualifying his case to supersede any Supreme Court ruling.
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