Tennessee's next execution is set for Feb. 20, and the AG wants nine more after that
Each of the six men executed by the state of Tennessee since August 2018 has had a history of mental illness, childhood abuse or both. It’s hard to find a person on death row, in this state or any other, without some combination of these experiences in their background.
But attorneys for four Tennessee death row prisoners facing possible execution dates in the near future are arguing that their clients’ mental illness crosses a higher threshold — one that makes them “incompetent to be executed.” These men, they argue, lack the capacity to rationally understand the fact that they are going to be killed, or why. Three of the four are from Nashville.
The men for whom attorneys are making such a claim are Byron Black, Tony Caruthers, Henry Hodges and Donald Middlebrooks. They are among the nine men for whom Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery is seeking an execution date. On Dec. 30, attorneys for those nine men filed their arguments as to why the state Supreme Court should no set execution dates.
Among the other issues raised in the new filings are racism in the criminal justice system and the death penalty specifically, as well as one innocence claim.
"Each of these cases is a window into the brokenness of the Tennessee death penalty," says Kelley Henry, the Nashville-based supervising assistant federal public defender who represents seven of the nine death row prisoners.
Black was convicted and sentenced to death in Davidson County in 1989 for the murders of Angela Clay and her two daughters, Latoya and Lakeisha. In the new court filing, Black's attorneys write that he has an IQ of 67, suffers from brain damage and has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. He also has a severe degenerative joint disease that affects his hip, and he can barely walk. Currently, they write, he “moves from place to place by being pushed while seated in a rolling office chair” because “the prison has not provided a walker.”
In Caruthers’ case, attorneys argue that he was not even competent to stand trial, much less represent himself at that trial, which they say he was forced to do. Caruthers was convicted and sentenced to death in Shelby County for the 1994 murders of Marcellos Anderson, Delois Anderson and Frederick Tucker. The filing highlights a number of issues with the trial, including the crucial role of a paid informant and the focus on a claim that Caruthers buried the three victims alive despite “overwhelming scientific evidence that is now acknowledged by the medical examiner proves that three already dead bodies were placed in a grave.”
The attorneys cite evidence of Caruthers’ “profound mental illness,” such as the fact that he believes “he will not be executed because the Department of Justice and Board of Professional Responsibility will intervene, he will be released from custody, and he will be awarded $3.3 million in damages from each of the dozens of various conspirators who have violated his rights.”
Hodges, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death in Davidson County for the 1990 murder of Ronald Bassett during a robbery, suffers from a “psychotic disorder." His attorneys write that his condition “causes him to lose touch with reality and smear feces over the walls and windows of his cell.” As a child, his filing notes, Hodges “was hospitalized multiple times and treated with powerful anti-psychotic medications.” His attorneys write that “one has to but meet Mr. Hodges to know that his mind tortures him daily.”
His filing also notes the inadequate and damaging representation he received at his trial.
Middlebrooks, who was convicted in Davidson County for the 1987 murder of Kerrick Majors, suffers from “a well-documented constellation of serious, debilitating psychiatric and medical diseases,” according to his attorneys. They write that he “hears voices and sees a shadow figure,” and they also note his history of severe childhood sexual torture, violence and neglect.
There is also a case in which attorneys argue that the high court should not just deny an execution date because of mental illness, but also because of a “strong case of actual innocence.” Pervis Payne was convicted in Shelby County for the 1987 murders of Charisse Christopher and her 2-year-old daughter Lacie, as well as the assault of Christopher’s 3-year-old son Nicholas. But his attorneys also argue that DNA testing on previously undisclosed evidence could exculpate him.
Throughout the new filings, attorneys also argue that the death penalty should be ruled unconstitutional because it is racist. Tennessee’s death row, like most, is disproportionately black, and studies have also found that death sentences are more likely in cases involving white victims than those in which the victim or victims are black.
The filings on behalf of the remaining men on the AG’s list can be read here:
Source: nashvillescene.com, Steven Hale, January 8, 2020
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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
