By Victor Trammell
On Thursday (November 18), Tennessee’s Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich stated that her office would no longer pursue a death sentence against death row prisoner Pervis Payne (pictured left).
According to The Tennessean, Weirich announced the judgment at a press conference and in a news release, noting that a state expert examined Payne and accessible documents “and could not declare that Payne’s intellectual functioning is beyond the range for intellectual impairment.”
Executing someone with an intellectual handicap is unlawful, according to the Supreme Courts of the United States and Tennessee. Tennessee lawmakers passed a bill in April that allows death row prisoners like Payne to challenge their sentences based on intellectual handicap.
Payne’s appeal is still ongoing before the court, contending that he is mentally disabled and so ineligible for the death punishment.
He will now spend two consecutive life sentences in jail for the 1987 murders of Charisse Christopher and her two-year-old daughter Lacie, rather than be executed. Nicholas, Christopher’s 3-year-old son, survived the assault at her apartment with many knife wounds.
Payne maintained his innocence throughout his 1988 trial, claiming that he found the murder scene after hearing distress cries through an open door in his apartment. He said he attempted to assist the victims but left the scene when a police officer arrived, fearful of being identified as the primary suspect.
Payne was due to testify at an evidentiary hearing on Dec. 13 to determine whether he is intellectually handicapped. According to The Tennessean, that hearing will no longer take place.
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