DA asks court to deny request for DNA testing in death penalty case
The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office is asking the court to deny a request for DNA testing in the death penalty case of Pervis Tyrone Payne, who is scheduled to be put to death on Dec. 3.
Payne was convicted in the 1987 stabbing deaths of Millington woman Charisse Christopher, 28, and her 2year-old daughter Lacie. Christopher’s 3-year-old son Nicholas survived multiple stab wounds.
Payne’s attorneys had hoped that DNA testing of newly discovered evidence would upend the plans for his execution, but District Attorney Amy Weirich said Thursday that the evidence — including bedsheets, a comforter and a pillow, all soaked in blood — was actually from the scene from an entirely different crime, one committed in 1998. “There is no new evidence and they are merely trying to delay his scheduled execution,” Weirich said. “The property room made a mistake. these items have nothing to do with Pervis Payne and should not have been shown (to his attorneys).” The case is being revived at the trial court level in Shelby County.
Payne is intellectually disabled and had no prior criminal history, according to his attorneys. The Innocence Project, a national legal group, has partnered with Nashville-based public defenders and other lawyers to seek the DNA testing. During his 1988 trial, Payne said he discovered the gruesome crime scene after hearing calls for help through the open door of the apartment. He said he bent down to try to help, getting blood on his clothes and pulling at the knife still lodged in Christopher’s throat. When a white police officer arrived, Payne, who is Black, said he panicked and ran, fearing he would be seen as the prime suspect.
DNA testing was never done to match blood from the kitchen to a potential killer. And police reports from the time said the kitchen was the only crime scene. Then, on Dec. 20, 2019, when federal public defender Kelley Henry went to Shelby County to review the case materials, she made a remarkable discovery: new evidence she said “had been in the State’s possession the whole time.”
In the previously unknown evidence bag labelled “Bedroom,” Henry found bedsheets, a comforter and a pillow. None of that evidence was mentioned in police reports or at trial. That evidence was presented in error, Weirich said Thursday.
Weirich showed crime scene photos from the 1998 crime scene in which the “bedroom” evidence was obtained 10 years after Payne was sentenced. That evidence was initialed by Shan Allen Tracy, a crime scene officer who wrote in an affidavit that he collected them in Memphis in 1998. Henry said Thursday that the question of whether that evidence comes from the Payne crime scene or the 1998 crime scene can be definitively answered through DNA testing.
“I don’t take anything at face value,” she said. “If they want to say it came from another crime scene, why do they wait seven months to tell us that?”
The petition from Payne’s attorneys also asked that other evidence not in dispute be tested, including a tampon, bloodstained clothing, fingernail clippings and more. The courts have previously denied the testing of some of those items, although Payne’s attorneys argue that the law and DNA testing has changed since then. Weirich said any information garnered from testing that DNA evidence “would not exonerate Pervis Payne” and that the request to test the DNA has already been heard and denied.
“The state would still have prosecuted and the defendant would still have been convicted with overwhelming evidence,” Weirich said. “Testing of these items accomplishes nothing but delay.”
Henry said DNA could, however, have shown a great deal, including the possibility of another suspect.
“I think it’s shocking that in 2020 a district attorney general would say DNA testing is irrelevant,” Henry said.
The testing could also have been completed prior to the Dec. 3 execution date, Henry said.
“On the law, the DA is relying on a case that was overruled by the Tennessee Supreme Court in 2006,” Henry said. “There is no legal barrier to testing in Mr. Payne’s case. The DA should not be citing out of date, overruled cases. It’s now more important than ever that this case get a full hearing before a judge.”
Tennessean reporter Adam Tamburin contributed to this article.
Katherine Burgess covers county government, religion and the suburbs. She can be reached at katherine.burgess@ commercialappeal.com, 901-529-2799 or followed on Twitter @kathsburgess.