Alternative Person of the Year: A Death Row Inmate
Posted on Tue Dec 26, 2006 at 01:36:52 AM EST
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WaPo Columnist Richard Cohen names his person of the year: Gregory Thompson, a delusional death row inmate:
Thompson, 45, is delusional. He is also paranoid, schizophrenic and depressed. For these ailments, he receives daily doses of drugs and, twice a month, anti-psychotic injections. The state of Tennessee wants very much to put him to death for the horrendous 1985 murder of Brenda Blanton Lane, of which there is no doubt about his guilt.
There is grave doubt, though, about the constitutionality, not to mention the decency, of executing an insane man. Thus the 12 pills Thompson takes every day. The idea, according to a recent account of his case in the Wall Street Journal, is to make him sane enough to be put to death.
As Cohen notes:
Maybe, though, Americans are beginning to understand that we just don't need the death penalty, that it makes us no safer and demeans us as a people. The case of Gregory Thompson is a case in point. He was probably insane when he murdered Brenda Blanton Lane but will be deemed sane if and when he's executed. He's my person of the year -- a fleetingly sane man in the maw of a thoroughly insane system.
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