From Tiktok to MLK III
Movement to keep man off Tennessee death row gains 600,000 signatures
The movement to keep Pervis Payne off death row in Tennessee gains momentum.
The case of death row inmate Pervis Payne is garnering nationwide interest, from Tennessee legislators to Tiktok users.
Payne, who has maintained his innocence, is convicted of the 1987 deaths of Millington woman Charisse Christopher, 28, and her 2-year-old daughter, Lacie.
Christopher’s 3-year-old son, Nicholas, survived multiple stab wounds in the brutal attack that took place in Christopher’s apartment.
Scheduled for an execution on Dec. 3, Payne was granted a reprieve due to COVID-19 until April 9 by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.
Now, as legislators work to pass a bill that could allow him a chance to plead his case that he is intellectually disabled — and thus constitutionally ineligible for the death penalty — thousands are supporting him online and in person.
“A lot of attention is being paid to the case on social media and the word is getting around,” said Payne’s attorney Kelley Henry.
The attention is unlike any other capital case Henry has seen in Tennessee. The closest comparison she can find is that of Gaile Owens, whose sentence was commuted by former Gov. Phil Bredesen.
In Payne’s case, a petition by The Innocence Project had garnered more than 600,000 signatures as of Friday, Henry said.
In Owens’ case, a petition asking for her freedom had about 11,000 signatures when it was presented to Bredesen, Henry said.
“This is far beyond any of that,” Henry said. “To have over half a million signatures on our petition is just astounding, but it speaks to the injustice in the case and how it’s resonating with people. They can understand the outrage that we could possibly execute someone who’s innocent and disabled when racism played a key role in landing them on death row.”
Online communities rally support
The interest has spread far beyond signatures on a petition.
A video on Tiktok, in which the creator compares the execution of Payne to a modern-day lynching, had more than 9.3 million views as of Monday.
Another video by the same user, @postiveaf, urges users to tag President Joe Biden and Vice-president Kamala Harris in tweets seeking clemency for Payne. Other videos by different Tiktok users urge people to make phone calls to Lee, to educate themselves about Payne and to sign the Innocence Project’s petition.
News stories on Payne have also made an impact closer to home as Lee considers a petition seeking clemency for Payne.
Rep. Jeremy Faison, a Republican from Cosby who also serves as the House GOP Caucus chairman, sent Gov. Bill Lee a text message last year after he saw a national news story about Payne’s case.
Faison shared the story with the governor.
“I just said ‘I don’t know if this was handled right. What are you thinking?’” Faison recalled, adding that he told Lee he was reading up on the case himself.
“He said the same thing,” Faison said of the governor’s response. “He would be studying it as well.”
Official responses reflect top-down pressure
Faison, who urged former Gov. Bill Haslam to consider releasing Cyntoia Brown from prison, hasn’t made a specific ask of Lee regarding Payne. Questions about the circumstances leading to Payne’s conviction just didn’t sit well with Faison, who wants to make sure the case is thoroughly studied before a death sentence is carried out.
“There’s probably more to the story than what we’ve been told,” Faison said.
A spokeswoman for Lee said Monday that the governor was still reviewing the case.
According to Casey Black, press secretary for Lee, Lee’s constituent services office has received a total of 2,054 items mentioning the Pervis Payne case.
While not every item specifies a location, the majority come from outside Tennessee, Black said. Those from within Tennessee largely come from metro areas like Shelby, Davidson and Knox counties.
Others have also noticed Payne’s story, including actress Alyssa Milano, who tweeted March 16 that “#Pervispayne is set to be executed on April 9th for a crime he almost certainly did not commit. Despite someone else’s DNA on the murder weapon, @Govbilllee has not halted his execution.”
And in an opinion piece published in The Commercial Appeal, Martin Luther King III, the eldest son of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, wrote that, “The path of love is sparing Pervis Payne’s life. I pray that Governor Lee takes it.”
“There is too much doubt to allow an execution of Mr. Payne and, because he is a person with an intellectual disability, his execution would be unconstitutional,” King wrote.
Broad spectrum of advocates
King wrote that he was joined by more than 150 faith, civil rights legal and legislative organizations across Tennessee calling for clemency for Payne.
Some of those calling for clemency include ACLU TN, Bend the Arc, former judge and prosecutor Ken Starr, the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Tennessee Catholic Bishops, Tennessee Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, the Tennessee Disability Coalition, the Ben F. Jones chapter of the National Bar Association and more.
Some of the recent interest is likely driven by the misconception that Payne will be executed April 9, Henry said. While that is when his reprieve ends, it is not an execution date.
A broad coalition of advocates had also come together in Memphis and beyond to support the push for DNA testing, results of which were released in the case just this January.
Recapping case details, role of DNA
The laboratory found the DNA of an unknown male on the knife Payne was accused of using in the double homicide, according to the lab report, but Payne’s DNA may also have been on the knife and Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan said the presence of another person’s DNA on the weapon wasn’t enough to prove Payne’s innocence.
The DNA sample from the unknown male was not complete enough to run through a national database.
Payne’s attorneys said the results were consistent with Payne’s testimony, that he arrived at the scene after the crime was committed, touching the knife in an attempt to help the Christophers.
Payne said at trial that 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.
The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office has maintained that regardless of what DNA testing shows, the evidence to convict Payne of the crimes was overwhelming.
An officer saw him leaving the scene of the crime drenched in blood, and Payne admitted to being there. His baseball cap was found looped around the 2-year-old victim’s arm, and his fingerprints were found inside the apartment.
In addition to the clemency petition, Payne’s attorneys are placing hope in a bill that has been filed in the Tennessee legislature that would allow defendants already sentenced to the death penalty with final convictions to still bring petitions regarding a claim of intellectual disability.
Potential for legal precedent
Both the U.S. Supreme Court and the Tennessee Supreme Court have ruled against executing people with intellectual disabilities, but no mechanism currently exists in Tennessee to bring a claim after a person has already been sentenced to the death penalty and whose conviction is final.
The bill was inspired by Payne’s case. According to a petition filed in federal court, Payne has an IQ score of 72 and a lower score of 68.4 when corrected for “outdated testing norms,” according to a 2019 analysis by a forensic psychologist.
The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office has maintained that at the time of the crime, Payne’s IQ was 78.