Tennessee inmate asks court to declare he can’t be executed

NASHVILLE — A Tennessee death row inmate’s attorneys on Wednesday asked a court to declare that he cannot be executed because he is intellectually disabled.

The petition was filed in Memphis Criminal Court one day after Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill making retroactive Tennessee’s law that prohibits the execution of the intellectually disabled.

Such executions were ruled unconstitutional in 2002, when the U.S. Supreme Court found they violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. But until Tuesday, Tennessee’s law had no mechanism for an inmate to reopen a case in order to press a claim of intellectual disability.

Attorneys for Pervis Payne, 54, have long argued he is intellectually disabled and helped push for the change to the law. The petition they filed on Wednesday includes IQ tests as well as declarations from teachers, employers, neighbors and family members attesting to Payne’s learning and functioning difficulties.

A sister seven years younger than Payne reported that when they were children, he was incapable of helping her with homework. Others said Payne could not count money or add up items at a store. He struggled to read and had a very limited vocabulary. Although he attended school through the 12th grade, he failed the proficiency test five times and was never able to graduate. A supervisor at Pizza Hut described him as “mentally challenged” and said he had difficulty remembering simple instructions.

Payne was sentenced to death in a Memphis court for the 1987 stabbing deaths of Charisse Christopher and her 2-year-old daughter, Lacie Jo. Christopher’s son, Nicholas, who was 3 at the time, also was stabbed but survived. Payne, who is Black, has always claimed innocence. He told police he was at Christopher’s apartment to meet his girlfriend when he heard the victims, who were white, and tried to help them.

Payne’s case was still under appeal when the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to execute the intellectually disabled, but he didn’t claim a disability until after his appeals were exhausted.