Nearly 34 years after receiving his death sentence, Pervis Payne may finally have a chance to avert the execution chamber.
Convicted of a double murder in 1987, Payne was sentenced to death despite unanswered questions around the evidence. The 54-year-old Tennessean, who now faces an execution date that could come down from the court any minute, has maintained his innocence for more than three decades.
Carrying bipartisan support, a measure allowing death row inmates like Payne to appeal their sentence on intellectual disability grounds cleared the Tennessee legislature Monday night. It will soon go to Gov. Bill Lee for his signature.
The initiative passed the House 89-4 and the Senate 28-1 Monday night. Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, was the lone dissenting vote on the Senate floor.
When investigators for the Millington Police Department swabbed the 1987 crime scene, they didn’t lift fingerprints from the sink knobs, door handles or toilet handle.
Neither were prints taken from the open kitchen drawer where officials assumed the knife used as the murder weapon was taken.
And those are just some of the errors that attorneys for Pervis Payne, a man convicted of a double murder, say marred the investigation and the years that have led up to Payne’s plea for clemency.
Now, it’s possible that Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is considering some of those alleged errors as he weighs Payne’s petition for clemency.
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Pervis Payne remains on death row despite DNA evidence, new date for.
Pervis Payne remains on death row despite DNA evidence, new date for execution to be set April 9
March 7, 2021
by Sumiko Saulson
Pervis Payne was a young man barely 20 years of age in June 1987 when the crime he was be convinced of occurred. According to court records, he said he had been waiting for his girlfriend Bobbie Thomas to come home from when he figured out something terrible had happened next door. Bobbie was out of town visiting her mother.
A young Black man with an intellectual disability, he said he was stunned when he saw the bloody crime scene. Charisse Christopher and both of her very young children had been stabbed multiple times. She died, along with her 2-year-old daughter Lacie. Her 3-year-old son Nicholas barely survived.
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