Nov. 26 TENNESSEE: Attorney claims Thompson's privacy violated Tennessee has violated the privacy rights of a death row inmate, according to his lawyers, who've asked the state Supreme Court to issue a protective order. In a separate but related statement to the court, Nashville-based attorney Michael Passino has provided more medical information to substantiate claims that Gregory Thompson isn't fit to be executed so he shouldn't be killed. Thompson, 43, is the death row inmate scheduled for execution 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, who wanted her car so they could go to Georgia. Lane was an employee of the United Methodist Publishing House in Nashville, a former reporter for the Shelbyville Times-Gazette, and the niece of then-police chief Jesse Blanton. She was abducted in a parking lot across from the police station and killed in Coffee County. In his request for a protective order, Passino says Thompson's medical records, recordings of his telephone calls, a visitor's log and other documents have been obtained by Jennifer L. Smith, senior counsel for the Tennessee Attorney General's office team dealing with death penalty cases. Some of the records are public documents, Passino notes. However, he claims that the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 protects Thompson. "Thompson has a right to privacy in his medical and mental health records," the lawyer wrote to the Supreme Court. "The mere filing of a lawsuit or becoming embroiled in a legal action where mental status is at issue does not constitute a waiver of HIPAA rights or privacy protections." Passino complains about the way Smith obtained Thompson's records, alleging it's been done without court approval. However, Passino's request to the state Supreme Court also includes mention of a subpoena issued by Coffee County Circuit Court. Passino also says that when he sought to obtain copies of the recordings of Thompson's phone calls, he was denied and was told that they were confidential. Furthermore, he claims, the state Attorney General's office hasn't maintained a history of exchanging information discovered during the course of litigation. Passino learned what Smith had been doing when he received Thompson's prison records. He found two memos by Smith from early 2004. "There was also a blind subpoena authored by District Attorney General Mickey Layne and issued by the Coffee County Circuit Court," Passino wrote. Apparently, the Coffee County district attorney got a subpoena for Smith and it "purports to compel the Tennessee Department of Corrections - to release - Thompson's medical information to the - attorney general," Passino said. The subpoena was sent by fax to Debra Inglis, an assistant attorney general assigned to the TDOC, Passino said. As the TDOC attorney, Inglis apparently forwarded the subpoena for use in obtaining records for Smith. In a January 2004 memo, Smith apparently directed a prison warden to provide visitor logs and recordings of Thompson's phone calls, the inmate's lawyer states. Logs are public records, but Passino complains that Smith is using a section of the Open Records Act to keep telephone recordings secret. Exceptions to the open records act include aspects of ongoing investigations. In Smith's March memo to the warden, Passino says, she directed the warden to provide weekly copies of records and sought Thompson's discipline, education, medical and psychological/psychiatric records. No state official notified Thompson's attorneys about the subpoena or took any steps to protect Thompson's privacy rights, Passino said. "There is no indication that the subpoena procured by - Layne on behalf of - Smith was reviewed by any judicial authority," Passino states. "It appears that a person, probably not - Layne, wrote 'DA's office Mickey Layne [with a phone number written]' on the subpoena, [then] had the Coffee County Circuit Court Clerk sign the subpoena and then faxed a copy of this subpoena to the Criminal Justice Division of the Attorney General's Office in Nashville, which then faxed it to the TDOC." Sending the subpoena to the TDOC lawyer -- an employee of the attorney general -- instead of to Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, where Thompson is held, resulted in a failure by TDOC to be sure confidential records were not disclosed, Passino states. "This conduct raises the specter of the government's unchecked and unlimited ability to obtain confidential information, not just about Mr. Thompson, but about any Tennessee citizen," the defense attorney said in documents filed Nov. 18. Smith circumvented established procedure, Passino said, to get medical records on Thompson. Meanwhile, Passino says, Smith has been arguing that information such as what she's compiled is irrelevant to the contention that Thompson is not competent to be executed. "An order of this court is required to curb this abusive use of power and to protect Mr. Thompson's privacy rights," Passino wrote to the Supreme Court. Thompson's lawyer wants the court to require the attorney general to lawfully seek information which would be subject to court review and to require the attorney general to share what that office found about Thompson. All proceedings should be postponed until Thompson's lawyers have had time to review the records, Passino said. As for additional medical information provided by Passino regarding Thompson's mental state, there are statements including one from Dr. George Woods. One aspect of Thompson's mania is that he constantly seeks and enjoys personal attention, but during Dr. Wood's attempt to examine Thompson on Nov. 16, Thompson refused to come out of his cell, Passino states. That is "potentially indicative of a substantial change in his mental health," Passino states, quoting Woods. Sufficient change in Thompson's mental condition is reason to stop his execution, Passino and other attorneys have claimed. Tennessee's standard for execution, however, is nominal. The condemned simply must know that they are to be executed and why. (source: Shelbyville Times-Gazette) USA: Mental Records Missing From Gun Database In Alabama, a man with a history of mental illness killed 2 police officers with a rifle he bought on Christmas Eve. In suburban New York, a schizophrenic walked into a church during Mass and shot to death a priest and a parishioner. In Texas, a woman taking anti-psychotic medication used a shotgun to kill herself. Not one of their names was in a database that licensed gun dealers must check before making sales -- even though federal law prohibits the mentally ill from purchasing guns. Most states have privacy laws barring such information from being shared with law enforcement. Legislation pending in Congress that has bipartisan support seeks to get more of the disqualifying records in the database. In addition to mandating the sharing of mental health records, the legislation would require that states improve their computerized record-keeping for felony records and domestic violence restraining orders and convictions, which also are supposed to bar people from purchasing guns. Similar measures, opposed by some advocates for the mentally ill and gun-rights groups, did not pass Congress in 2002 and 2004. The FBI, which maintains the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, has not taken a position on the bill, but the bureau is blunt about what adding names to its database would do. "The availability of this information will save lives," the FBI said in a recent report. More than 53 million background checks for gun sales have been conducted since 1998, when the NICS replaced a five-day waiting period. More than 850,000 sales have been denied, the FBI reported; in most of those cases, the applicant had a criminal record. Legislation sponsored by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., says millions of records are either missing or incomplete. "The computer is only as good as the information you put in it," McCarthy said. In the Alabama case, police say Farron Barksdale ambushed the officers as they arrived at the home of his mother in Athens, Ala., on Jan. 2, 2004. Barksdale had been committed involuntarily to mental hospitals on at least two occasions, authorities said. Facing the death penalty, he has pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental disease and defect. The shootings led Alabama lawmakers to share with the FBI the names of people who have been committed involuntarily to mental institutions. But just 20 other states provide NICS at least some names of people with serious mental illness, a disqualifier for gun purchases under federal law since 1968. Shayla Stewart had been hospitalized five times in Texas, twice by court order. Yet Stewart was able to buy a shotgun at a Wal-Mart in 2003 because Texas considers mental health records confidential. The same is true in New York, where Peter Troy was twice admitted to mental hospitals but bought a .22-caliber rifle that he used in the shootings inside a Long Island church in March 2002. Troy is serving consecutive life terms for the killings. As a result of the church shootings, McCarthy and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., introduced legislation that year to close the gaps in the background check system. The bill would have required the states to give the FBI their records and provided $250 million in grants to cover their costs. The bill passed the House without opposition but stalled in the Senate. In 2004, the measure again had the support of lawmakers who support gun rights, but it did not pass Congress. McCarthy, whose husband was among six people shot to death on a Long Island Rail Road train in 1993, has introduced it again this year, but it has not yet been taken up by a House Judiciary subcommittee. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, a National Rifle Association board member, was a sponsor of the bill in the last Congress and continues to support it, spokesman Dan Whiting said. The NRA supports the concept, but it has not taken a position on McCarthy's legislation, spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said. Michael Faenza, president and chief executive of the National Mental Health Association, said forcing states to share information on the mentally ill would violate patient privacy and contribute to the stigma they face. "It's just not fair. On the one hand, we want there to be very limited access to guns," Faenza said. "But here you're singling out people because of a medical condition and denying them rights held by everyone else." Several states have determined that they can flag residents who should not be allowed to buy a gun without compromising the privacy of mental health patients, said Matt Bennett, a spokesman for Americans for Gun Safety, which supports the bill. Larry Pratt, executive director of the Gun Owners of America, said adding records to the database is the wrong idea. "Our idea of improving NICS is to abolish it," Pratt said. "There is this continuing assumption that a gun buyer is guilty until proven innocent." The states that provide some or all mental health records are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming. On the Net: National Instant Criminal Background Check System: http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/nics/index.htm Americans for Gun Safety: http://www.americansforgunsafety.com/ Gun Owners of America: http://www.gunowners.org Information on the bill, H.R. 1415, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov/ (source: Associated Press) VIRGINIA: Warner still pondering Va. killer's fate A national milestone in the use of society's ultimate sanction may be reached next week about 60 miles south of Richmond. Death row inmate Robin Lovitt is scheduled to be executed by injection on Wednesday at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt. If his clemency petition to Gov. Mark R. Warner is denied, Lovitt's could be the 1,000th execution in the U.S. since 1977, when executions resumed after a 10-year halt imposed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Ellen Qualls, spokeswoman for Warner, said yesterday that she feels "confident he won't announce any decision this weekend. But since no other court action is pending, he could act prior to the 30th." Since 1977, only Texas, with 357 executions, has put to death more killers than Virginia, with 94. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Texas and Virginia alone account for nearly 1/2 the toll over the past 3 decades. Virginia resumed executions in 1982 with the electrocution of Frank J. Coppola at the former Virginia State Penitentiary in Richmond. Executions are now conducted at the prison in Jarratt. Since January 1995, the condemned have had the option of dying by the electric chair or lethal injection. Lovitt, 41, sentenced to death for the 1998 slaying of a pool hall employee in Arlington during a robbery, has asked Warner to commute his death sentence to life without parole. Among his arguments for mercy, he points out that the Arlington County Circuit Court ordered the evidence in his case destroyed, shortly after a new state law ordered the preservation of such evidence. His lawyers contend new DNA testing on the evidence could clear him or raise doubts about his guilt. (source: Richmond Times-Dispatch)
