This new AP article, headlined "Tennessee Seeks Execution Dates for 9 Death Row Inmates," explains why the Volunteer State is on a path to become the new Texas in the arena of capital punishment thanks in part to efforts by the state's Attorney General. Here are the basics:
Tennessee's attorney general has asked the state Supreme Court to set execution dates for nine death row prisoners, bucking a national movement away from capital punishment. Attorney General Herbert Slatery quietly filed the request on Friday with no explanation, and the state Supreme Court later posted it on its website on Tuesday.
"The Tennessee Constitution guarantees victims of crime the right to a 'prompt and final conclusion of the case after the conviction of sentence,'" Slatery said in a statement Tuesday in response to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
Slatery's motion came the same day he publicly announced he would challenge a Nashville Criminal Court's decision to commute the death sentence of black inmate Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman's to life in prison after concerns were raised that racism tainted the jury selection pool. Slatery argued in his appeal that the court's order "circumvented established legal procedures."
Assistant Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry said she was surprised by the request when she received it in the mail on Monday. Seven of the nine men included in Slatery's motion are represented by the public defender's office. "Each case is unique and represents a number of fundamental constitutional problems including innocence, racism, and severe mental illness," Henry wrote in a statement on Tuesday. "We will oppose the appointed attorney general's request."
In Tennessee, the attorney general can request execution dates once juries have delivered death sentences and inmates have exhausted their three-tier appeals process in state courts and the U.S. Supreme Court. The state Supreme Court then schedules the executions. It has not yet scheduled the nine Slatery requested but has scheduled two others for the coming months.
Tennessee has executed five people since it resumed executions about a year ago. The state was second only to Texas in the number of executions it carried out in 2018, the fourth consecutive year in which there have been fewer than 30 executions nationwide. Tennessee executed three people last year; Texas put to death 13....
In Tennessee, executions are carried out through lethal injection unless the drugs are unavailable, in which case the electric chair is used. Additionally, death row inmates who were convicted of crimes before January 1999 can choose the electric chair or lethal injection. Tennessee put 56-year-old Stephen West to death by electric chair last month. West was convicted of the 1986 kidnappings and stabbing deaths of a mother and her 15-year-old daughter. He also was convicted of raping the teen.
Comments
Post a Comment