By Mick Collins, a 2009 graduate of Concord Law School and a member of the 2009 class of ACS Next Generation Leaders. The faculty of Concord Law awarded Collins the honor of outstanding graduate in his class. Collins passed the California bar exam and plans to practice Criminal Law.
Can states execute "chemically competent" defendants without running afoul of the Constitution? In other words, does the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment prohibit government executions of death row convicts after those inmates have been brought from incompetency to competency through forced administration of antipsychotic drugs?
A recent Sixth Circuit opinion lamented the fact that neither the U.S. Supreme Court nor the Sixth Circuit have "squarely addressed" this question. This same opinion declined to answer this "difficult question" because the State of Tennessee never actually forced the defendant, Gregory Thompson, to take antipsychotic medications.
Convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death, Thompson sought relief through a series of habeas petitions. Before the Tennessee Supreme Court, Thompson filed a fina
l substantial change petition including an assertion of his incompetency. Thompson also raised the question whether executing an incompetent could constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Tennessee's highest court found Thompson's history of mental illness and his delusions "stale" and "not relevant to the issue of present competency." The Court reasoned that because Thompson recounted details of the crime and made statements that showed Thompson knew about his death sentence and the reason for it, Thompson remained competent. Three well qualified mental health professionals agreed that Thompson suffered from pronounced delusions and paranoia rendering Thompson unable to comprehend his pending execution. Although his drug regimen enabled his state of "chemical competency," the Tennessee Supreme Court failed to address the Eighth Amendment issue.