After putting 3 men to death in 2018, Tennessee has scheduled 4 executions for 2019
Although death sentences and executions in the United States continued their long-term decline in 2018 — it was the 4th year in a row that saw fewer than 30 executions nationwide — the death penalty is experiencing a revival in Tennessee. Ours was 1 of just 8 states to carry out an execution last year, the same year that Washington became the 20th state to abolish the practice altogether.
Tennessee shows no signs of slowing down this year. After putting 3 men to death in 2018 — Billy Ray Irick, Edmund Zagorski and David Earl Miller — the state has scheduled 4 executions for 2019.
- Donnie Johnson, May 16: Johnson was convicted in 1985 for the murder of his wife, Connie Johnson. His attorneys have argued that his death sentence is arbitrary and out of step with the sentences handed down for other similar crimes.
- Stephen Michael West, Aug. 15: West was convicted in 1986 for the murders of Wanda Romines, 51, and her daughter Sheila Romines, 15, and for raping Sheila Romines. West’s co-defendant, Ronnie Martin, confessed that he was the one who actually stabbed the 2 women. But because Martin was a juvenile at the time, he was not eligible for the death penalty. West’s attorneys point to that as evidence that West’s death sentence is unjust. West also has a history of severe mental illness.
- Charles Walton Wright, Oct. 10: Wright was convicted in 1985 for the murders of Gerald Mitchell and Douglas Alexander during a drug deal in Nashville. His attorneys argue that his death sentence was the result of racial bias in capital cases at the time, and point to numerous other drug-related homicides that have not led to death sentences. Wright is currently ill with cancer, and it’s possible he will die in prison before his execution date.
- Lee Hall, Dec. 5: Hall was convicted in 1992 for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Traci Crozier. He had filled a container with gasoline, stuffed a paper towel in the top, lit it, and thrown it on Crozier as she sat in her car. Today, Hall’s attorneys say, he is functionally blind. His attorneys have argued that executing him in his current state would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
2 of the 3 men executed in 2018 chose to die in the electric chair, deeming it a quicker, relatively preferable death compared to the lethal injection drugs that medical experts have said cause tortuous pain. Some, if not all, the men set to die in 2019 could make the same choice.
Source: Nashville Scene, January 10, 2019
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
