Opinion ID: 2978449
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Thompson’s Incompetency Petition

Text: On January 21, 2004, the day after the Supreme Court denied Thompson’s petition for a rehearing, Tennessee’s attorney general filed a motion with the Tennessee Supreme Court to set a date for Thompson’s execution. On February 2, 2004, Thompson filed a response opposing the state’s motion and a petition providing notice of his incompetency to be executed. On February 25, 2004, the Tennessee Supreme Court set an execution date of August 19, 2004, but remanded the issue of Thompson’s competency to the trial court. Under Tennessee law, set forth in Van Tran v. State, 6 S.W.3d 257, 266 (Tenn. 1999), a prisoner is not competent for execution if he “lacks the mental capacity to understand the fact of the impending execution and the reason for it.” Under this standard, a prisoner seeking to be found incompetent for execution in Tennessee has the initial evidentiary burden to make a “threshold showing” that his present incompetency is genuinely at issue in order to warrant an evidentiary hearing. Id. at 268-69. In his petition to the trial court, Thompson requested an evidentiary hearing to determine his competency, Nos. 06-5744/5770 Thompson v. Bell Page 3 and submitted with his motion his prison medical records, along with the reports of three mental health experts–John S. Rabun (“Dr. Rabun”), George W. Woods, Jr. (“Dr. Woods”), and Dr. Faye E. Sultan (“Dr. Sultan”)–who had recently examined him. The medical records submitted to the trial court show that Thompson has engaged in self-destructive acts from the time his incarceration began, including swallowing poison, cutting his wrist and arms, and burning his hand and face. Prison doctors began prescribing medication, including Lithium, to control Thompson’s “mood swings” as early as 1988. (Joint Appendix (“J.A.”) at 314.) A medical report from 1988 indicated that Thompson heard “voices” and believed he had gotten a “snake bite” on his finger and chest. (J.A. at 316.) In 1989, prison doctors diagnosed Thompson on two different occasions as “schizophrenic, paranoid type” and as having “bipolar affective disorder.” (J.A. at 317, 324.) Thompson was given prescriptions for Klonopin and Trilafon when he refused to take his Lithium prescription. The psychiatrist who diagnosed him at that time reported that Thompson had been “displaying active evidence of psychosis and mania with marked grandiosity and delusional thought content.” (J.A. at 324.) Thompson was continually diagnosed as bipolar or schizophrenic throughout his incarceration. In 1995, a prison doctor deemed Thompson a “mental health emergency” because his mental illness was causing “an immediate threat of serious physical harm to the inmate/patient or to others as a result of [his] violent behavior[.]” (J.A. at 343.) The doctor’s report noted that “voluntary . . . medication” had been “ineffective[.]” (Id.) According to a physician who evaluated Thompson in 2001, Thompson had been “violent at times” and had “assaulted staff in the recent past which appears to be related to his mental illness.” (J.A. at 405.) Dr. Rabun, a forensic psychiatrist in the pretrial evaluation unit of the St. Louis Psychiatric Rehabilitation Center in Missouri, interviewed Thompson for two and one-half hours on March 17, 2003 and for another two hours on January 19, 2004. Dr. Rabun also read Thompson’s medical records and court files, and the reports of other mental health experts who had evaluated him since his incarceration began. Thompson told Dr. Rabun that he has heard voices intermittently since at least the time of his conviction, and that the voices become less acute when he takes antipsychotic medication. Thompson also shared a number of delusions with Dr. Rabun, including that he has written “most of the songs you hear on the radio;” that he has millions of dollars, gold bars and “a Grammy award” buried near a Nos. 06-5744/5770 Thompson v. Bell Page 4 church in Thomaston, Georgia; and that the United States Navy owes him back pay dating back to 1979. (J.A. at 441.) Thompson told Dr. Rabun that he “killed Brenda Lane,” that he had been convicted of first-degree murder, and that he had been sentenced to “death” in connection with the killing. (J.A. at 442, 447.) Thompson also informed Dr. Rabun that because he was “a lieutenant in the Navy” and therefore had a right to be tried by a jury of “professionals,” his conviction should be overturned; only the “Secretary of the Navy” could decide to execute him. (J.A. at 442, 448.) Thompson said that “once everyone sees I am a lieutenant, the Secretary of the Navy will take control, and the case will be thrown out.” (J.A. at 442.) Thompson elaborated that when his buried fortune and Grammy award are discovered, he will be deemed “rehabilitated.” (Id.) Thompson told Dr. Rabun that he preferred execution by electrocution, because “I am used to being shocked, every time I touch my TV, I get shocked, or when I went to a chiropractor in 1982, he twisted my neck, and it felt like a shock.” (J.A. at 448.) Dr. Rabun diagnosed Thompson as schizophrenic, hallucinatory and delusional. Having reviewed Thompson’s medical records, Dr. Rabun stated that Thompson likely had been suffering from a psychotic illness for more than ten years, and that his illness was particularly severe when he did not take antipsychotic medications. Dr. Rabun ruled out “a physical or neurological disorder” as the cause of Thompson’s condition, and rejected the possibility that Thompson had been “malingering.” (J.A. at 446.) Dr. Rabun concluded that in his opinion, Thompson “lacks the mental capacity to understand the fact of the impending execution and the reason for it.” (J.A. at 449.) Dr. Woods, a psychiatrist, examined Thompson on February 17, 2004 for approximately three hours, and also reviewed Thompson’s medical records, court file and transcripts from his legal proceedings. Dr. Woods reported that “Thompson believes that he can not die, and there will be a two-year period in which he will stay alive, even if he were executed.” (J.A. at 463.) Dr. Woods stated that Thompson “denied . . . that electrocution would, in fact, eliminate his life.” (Id.) In addition to sharing with Dr. Woods the same delusions reported by Dr. Rabun, Thompson also told Dr. Woods that “after death . . . he was going to be in Hawaii.” (Id.) Dr. Woods diagnosed Thompson as a Nos. 06-5744/5770 Thompson v. Bell Page 5 schizophrenic “suffer[ing] from a severe mental illness with psychotic features.” (Id.) Dr. Woods noted that Thompson suffers from extreme delusions and hallucinations, even while compliant with his prescribed medication regimen. Like Dr. Rabun, Dr. Woods concluded that Thompson is not competent to be executed. Dr. Sultan, a clinical psychologist and forensic consultant, submitted a letter dated February 27, 2004, in which she stated that she had conducted eleven clinical interviews of Thompson since 1998, with her most recent interview on January 28, 2004. Dr. Sultan stated her belief that Thompson has been schizophrenic “at least since early adulthood,” and reported that Thompson “has experienced the delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking, and disorganized speech and behavior that are all characteristic of his particular psychiatric illness.” (J.A. at 485.) Dr. Sultan stated that she had observed Thompson off his medication, and concluded that “[i]n a non-medicated state, Mr. Thompson is floridly psychotic.” (J.A. at 486.) Without medication, she stated, Thompson is “unaware of his surroundings,” “largely incomprehensible,” and “completely unaware about the reason for his incarceration, the sentence he had received, or the fact of impending execution.” (Id.) Even with medication, Thompson “continues to exhibit the major symptoms of Schizophrenia,” “has no real sense of his actual legal situation” and “lacks the understanding that the State of Tennessee could legally execute him.” (J.A. at 486-87.) Dr. Sultan cited the same delusions that the other medical experts noted, including Thompson’s claims of buried fortune in Georgia, his military rank and his pending re-trial by a “professional” jury. (Id.) Sultan concluded that Thompson “currently lacks the capacity to understand the fact of his scheduled execution or the reason for it.” (J.A. at 487.) In addition to his medical records and the reports and affidavits from the three experts, Thompson also presented the trial court with evidence that in 2001 the state had petitioned a Tennessee court for the appointment of a conservator to make decisions on Thompson’s behalf regarding his mental health and medical treatment. The conservatorship petition cited Thompson’s “long history of [b]ipolar [d]isorder and psychic symptoms,” as well as Thompson’s failure to comply with his medication prescriptions. (J.A. at 414.) In October 2003, a state court terminated the conservatorship after finding that Thompson was voluntarily taking his medication. Nos. 06-5744/5770 Thompson v. Bell Page 6 On March 8, 2004, the trial court denied Thompson’s incompetency petition without holding an evidentiary hearing, finding that Thompson had not made the requisite threshold showing of incompetency to warrant such a hearing. The trial court found that “all three of the expert reports . . . demonstrate clearly that Thompson is presently aware that he is under a death sentence for the murder of Brenda Lane under the ‘cognitive’ standard established by the Supreme Court.” (J.A. at 561.) The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the trial court on May 12, 2004. The court found that although the expert reports indicated that Thompson is currently suffering from “schizophrenia, chronic undifferentiated type, the reports do not present facts indicating that Thompson is unaware of his impending execution and the reason for it.” Thompson v. State, 134 S.W.3d 168, 179 (Tenn. 2004). The court dismissed Thompson’s documented history of mental illness as “stale” and “not relevant to the issue of present competency.” Id. at 178. The court cited Thompson’s ability to recount certain details of his crime, and his statements showing that he knows about his death sentence for the murder, as evidence that he is aware of his execution and the reason for it. Id. at 180-81. The court also cited Thompson’s assertion to Dr. Woods that he will live for two years after his “execution,” and his statement to Dr. Sultan that it is impossible for him to be executed, as further evidence that Thompson understands that an execution is going to take place. Id. at 182. The court acknowledged Thompson’s delusions, but stated that “[t]his Court previously rejected a prisoner’s reliance on such delusional or unorthodox beliefs as irrelevant to the question of competency for execution.” Id. at 180. On June 14, 2004, Thompson filed a federal habeas petition challenging the state court’s competency ruling, and on June 21, 2004, the district court stayed Thompson’s execution pending the outcome of the habeas petition. However, Thompson’s habeas proceeding concerning his incompetency was stayed when, on June 23, 2004, this Court amended and reversed its January 9, 2003 ruling affirming the denial of Thompson’s original habeas petition. The state appealed this Court’s amended decision, and on June 27, 2005, the Supreme Court held that this Court had abused its discretion by withholding the mandate of its original judgment for more than five months after the Supreme Court denied rehearing on Thompson’s petition for writ of certiorari. Bell v. Thompson, 545 U.S. 794, 813-14 (2005). Nos. 06-5744/5770 Thompson v. Bell Page 7 Following the Supreme Court’s denial of rehearing on August 22, 2005, the district court resumed Thompson’s habeas petition based upon incompetency, which, by that time, had been stayed for more than one year. Thompson argued that because so much time had passed, he should have the opportunity to update the state courts on his present condition. On September 16, 2005, the district court lifted the stay of execution so Tennessee could set a date for Thompson’s execution and Thompson could re-petition the Tennessee Supreme Court. The Tennessee Supreme Court set an execution date of February 7, 2006, and on September 23, 2005, Thompson submitted to that court a petition, authorized under the procedure set forth in Van Tran, 6 S.W.3d at 272, showing that a substantial change in his condition had occurred since the court’s previous ruling (Thompson’s “substantial change petition”). Thompson argued in his substantial change petition that since he filed his first incompetency petition, Thompson’s delusions had expanded, and his medications no longer worked. Thompson included with his petition two affidavits from Dr. Sultan based on her evaluations of Thompson on July 28, 2005 and November 7, 2005. In the first evaluation, Dr. Sultan found that Thompson’s “psychological condition had deteriorated” and that it included “a new set of irrational beliefs.” (J.A. at 1249.) Dr. Sultan reported that Thompson believed his execution and involvement in Brenda Lane’s murder were all “predestined,” and that all of the events of his life were written on a note that is “buried at the church” and will prevent him from being executed when it is discovered. (Id.) Dr. Sultan concluded that Thompson “can speak about the subject of death on a purely theoretical level but cannot rationally talk about his own death.” (Id.) Dr. Sultan’s second evaluation confirmed that Thompson was continuing to deteriorate. Thompson’s substantial change petition also included a new claim that if Thompson is rendered competent for execution only because of the medication he takes involuntarily, then the execution is barred by the Eighth Amendment. On December 13, 2005, the Tennessee Supreme Court denied Thompson’s petition, finding that no substantial change had occurred. The court did not address Thompson’s additional Eighth Amendment claim. Thompson then resumed his habeas petition based upon incompetency in the district court. On March 17, 2006, Thompson amended the petition to add the Eighth Amendment claim that he had just presented to the Tennessee Supreme Court with his substantial change Nos. 06-5744/5770 Thompson v. Bell Page 8 petition. On May 4, 2006, the district court dismissed Thompson’s petition, finding that the state courts’ decisions on Thompson’s present competency for execution were neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law, nor an unreasonable determination of the facts before them. With respect to Thompson’s claim that it is unconstitutional to execute a prisoner rendered competent through medication, the district court determined that the claim was both in procedural default and time-barred, and that Thompson had failed to state a claim in any event. The district court issued a certificate of appealability with respect to Thompson’s original claim of incompetency. Thompson timely appealed. On June 20, 2007, this Court expanded the certificate of appealability to include Thompson’s second incompetency claim as well.