Tennessee | Review of death-sentence defendants shows how justice is unevenly applied

The death penalty is not a comparatively proportional sentence for the murder of a single victim.

As of Aug. 12, I have identified 2,838 adults who have been convicted of first-degree murder in Tennessee since 1977, when the death penalty was reinstated.

Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 12 requires the trial court judge to file a report with the Supreme Court when there is a first-degree murder conviction. In 1999 then-Chief Justice Riley Anderson stated that the court’s primary interest in the database that is established from the reports is for comparative proportionality review.

That consists of comparing the gravity of the offense and the harshness of the punishment with those factors in other cases. This is done to avoid arbitrariness in the punishment for first-degree murder.

I have found that in approximately 45% of the cases, the trial court judge has not filed the required report.

There are 193 adult defendants who have received death sentences for first-degree murder since 1977. Only 87 of those defendants have had their death sentences sustained.

Thirteen defendants have been executed, 28 have died after having been sentenced to death, and 45 defendants are incarcerated on Death Row.

Twenty-seven of the 45 defendants on Death Row were convicted of the murder of a single victim. Below is a comparison of the sentences that have been imposed on the defendants who have been convicted of first-degree murder of a single victim.

Two hundred and forty-nine adult defendants have been convicted of first-degree murder of one Black woman. Only three have been sentenced to death; 246 have not.

Five hundred and fifty-five adult defendants have been convicted of first-degree murder of one white woman. Only 25 have been sentenced to death; 530 have not.

Six hundred and forty-seven adult defendants have been convicted of first-degree murder of one Black man. Only five have been sentenced to death; 642 have not.

Nine hundred and sixty-nine adult defendants have been convicted of first-degree murder of one white man. Twenty-two have been sentenced to death; 947 have not.

Forty adult defendants have been convicted of murders of single victims of other races, but none have received a death sentence.

In summation, 2,460 defendants have been convicted of the murder of a single victim. Only 55 have been sentenced to death.

Two thousand, four hundred and five (97.8%) of the single-murder defendants were not sentenced to death. On the other hand, I have identified 335 multiple-victim murderers (with two to six victims) who have been sentenced to life with or without the possibility of parole, which is six times the number of single-murder defendants who have been sentenced to death.

This demonstrates that a death sentence is not a comparatively proportional punishment for the murder of a single victim.

The 28 single-murder-victim defendants who are on Death Row should have their sentences commuted to life with or without parole. Otherwise, they will have been denied justice.

Source: tennessean.com, Opinion, Ed Miller, August 28, 2021. Ed Miller is a Brentwood lawyer who is a graduate of the Vanderbilt School of Law.

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