Tennessee | Governor Denies Clemency for Nick Sutton

Victims' family members — and former prison officers who say Sutton saved their lives — have pleaded for Sutton's life

Gov. Bill Lee will not stop Thursday's electrocution of Nick Sutton, making way for the fourth execution of a Tennessee prisoner since the governor took office in January 2019.

"After careful consideration of Nicholas Sutton’s request for clemency and a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and will not be intervening," Lee said in a written statement released this morning.

Sutton, 58, was sentenced to death in 1985 for stabbing fellow inmate Carl Estep to death. At age 23, he'd already been convicted of three murders. He was in prison serving a life sentence for killing his grandmother Dorothy when he was 18 years old, and he'd also been convicted of murdering Charles Almon and John Large in North Carolina.

But in his petition for clemency, Sutton's attorneys argued the he'd "gone from a life-taker to a life-saver." They included affidavits from several former prison officers who said Sutton had saved their lives on the inside.

One of those officers, Tony Eden, told a story about a riot at the Tennessee State Prison in 1985:

A group of five inmates, armed with knives and other weapons, surrounded me and attempted to take me hostage. Nick and another inmate confronted them, physically removed me from the situation and escorted me to the safety of the trap gate in another building. I firmly believe that the inmates who tried to take me hostage intended to seriously harm, if not kill me. Nick risked his safety and well-being in order to save me from possible death. I owe my life to Nick Sutton.

In total, seven current and former Tennessee Department of Correction staff members spoke out in support of clemency for Sutton. Another veteran prison official studied Sutton's history since he was sent to prison and wrote a lengthy report arguing that not only was Sutton not a threat to people, but that he could be a positive presence in the prison going forward.

Sutton's supporters also include people like former death row prisoner and Paul House — who was exonerated in 2009 — and House's mother Joyce, who remembers learning that after House lost the ability to walk, Sutton "began carrying him to the shower every day and helping him wash.”

Some of the family members of Sutton's victims also asked the governor to spare his life.

Sutton's clemency attorney, former federal district court judge Kevin Sharp, released a statement after the governor's announcement:

Nick Sutton’s is a once-in-a-lifetime case for clemency: he has saved the lives of three correction officials during his incarceration; his request for clemency was supported by seven former and current Tennessee correction professionals, family members of victims, five of the original jurors and others.

Correction officials wanted Mr. Sutton’s life spared so he could keep making the prison safer for guards and encouraging good behavior from inmates. Mr. Sutton has been a model inmate who seeks every opportunity to be of service to others. For example, before being exonerated and proven innocent of all crimes, Paul House was another inmate on death row with Mr. Sutton. When multiple sclerosis caused Mr. House to lose the ability to walk, it was Nick Sutton who literally carried Mr. House around and helped keep him alive. That’s who Mr. Sutton is; that is who the state of Tennessee plans to execute tomorrow, unless a court stops them.

We will continue to seek every available avenue of possible relief for Mr. Sutton because his execution is opposed by many family members of victims, many of the jurors who originally sentenced him to death but recognize his changes, and by the extraordinarily high number of correction professionals who came forward on his behalf.

Sutton is one of 38 death row prisoners able to choose between lethal injection and electrocution because he was convicted before 1999, when the state made lethal injection its primary method of execution.

More death row prisoners have been turning to the electric chair in light of testimony from medical experts that the state's lethal injection drugs will cause excruciating pain. Unless a court stays his execution, Sutton will be the 7th Tennessee prisoner executed since August 2018, and the 5th to choose the electric chair.

Source: Nashville Scene, Staff, February 19, 2020

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