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Thread: James Anderson Dellinger - Tennessee

  1. #11
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On May 18, 2020, the United States Supreme Court DENIED Dellinger's petition for a writ of certiorari.

    Lower Ct: Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, Eastern Division
    Case Numbers: (E2018-00135-CCA-R3-ECN)
    Decision Date: April 17, 2019
    Discretionary Court Decision Date: August 14, 2019

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....c/19-8011.html

  2. #12
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    Distributed for conference June 25, 2020.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....c/19-8011.html
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

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  3. #13
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    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

  4. #14
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    30 years waiting, 2 convicted murderers sitting on death row

    Transcripts from the murder trial of Stella Whitted’s sister are upstairs in her house, inside a box, collecting dust. At one point, she thought she would use them to write a book but said now, it’s too hard to reread them and relive the murders of her 2 younger siblings.

    On Feb. 24, 1992, her brother Tommy Mayford Griffin was found face down on a riverbank, dead. 4 days later, her sister, Connie Branam, was found burned alive in her car. Whitted said she has relived those deaths during every trial she’s attended and served as a witness for in the past 3 decades.

    Gary Wayne Sutton, now 52, and his uncle James Henderson Dellinger were convicted for the murders and have been on death row since 1996. Their first execution date was Nov. 9, 1996, and then a second on Sept. 17, 2002. Appeals have delayed the process.

    They’re alive now and incarcerated, with no date set for execution in the future.

    “Everybody’s gone and what am I here for? Stuck and them not doing nothing,” Whitted said. “But I always went to their appeals because it’s not ended for me. And I don’t want none of my other brothers and sisters hurt, and I don’t care what they do to me, they can’t hurt me no worse than they already have.”

    The hold up

    2 years ago, in September 2019, a motion was filed for Sutton’s execution along with eight others on death row in Tennessee. The district attorney’s office told Whitted that it would keep her updated on the situation, letting her know when a date was set, but they didn’t, she said.

    The Daily Times reached out to one of Tennessee’s assistants to the DA, Amy Tarkington, several times and inquired about Whitted’s claims that they’re purposefully avoiding her calls, but Tarkington never responded.

    Up until last Monday, Whitted said that she was unable to reach anyone in the office for updates. However, she said, she spoke to a woman over the phone on Sept. 13, who sent her the execution motion from 2019. She also allegedly told Whitted that they’re “overloaded” right now, the pandemic has stirred more issues and a date could be set soon, for Sutton.

    A court record from February 2020 states that Sutton and his law team opposed the 2019 execution motion on the premise that he shouldn’t be executed if Dellinger isn’t also. They were convicted equally in fault and involvement.

    In September 2018, Dellinger filed a motion with new evidence that showed a 3rd party could have been involved in the murders.

    Another defense he has used throughout hearings and appeals is that his IQ is low enough to qualify as a mental disability, therefore he can’t be executed.

    The Tennessee legislature passed a bill in April 2021 that prohibits anyone on death row with an intellectual disability to be executed.

    The DA for Blount County, Mike Flynn, was one of the prosecutors who worked to convict Dellinger and Sutton in the 1990s. He said that the court has consistently held Dellinger as “competent and not mentally impaired.”

    “Certainly, there’s a big age difference in the two,” Flynn said. “So, it’s entirely possible that one or the other may die before they are executed.”

    The murders

    Flynn remembers how difficult the trials were for the family, especially the mother who had lost a daughter and son days apart. He said the lengthy appeal process is still difficult for the family members who are alive and involved, like Whitted.

    Whitted said she fears that one day, Sutton and Dellinger will be released and destroy another family.

    Griffin was found near Walland on an embankment by Little River with a large hole in the back of his head from a shotgun blast. Reports stated that Griffin’s trailer was seen in flames shortly before people heard 2 gunshots.

    The convicted murderers, Sutton and Dellinger, lived near Griffin, and occasionally, they would go places together. Whitted was specific that they were acquaintances, not friends.

    On the night Griffin was killed, he, Sutton and Dellinger were seen at a bar together, and someone testified seeing them get into a scuffle after leaving. Griffin was found on the side of the road with some injuries, was arrested and charged with public intoxication. Later that night, Sutton and Dellinger bailed Griffin out of jail, which was the last time he was seen alive.

    The trial concluded that Griffin’s sister came looking for him the next day, and Sutton and Dellinger lit her car on fire while she was inside, leaving her to burn to death.

    The move forward

    Whitted said the rest of her family, except her, was able to move on from the murders.

    “Not never gotten out of it. I’m still right here in it,” Whitted said. “And I will be until they’re either completely off the streets for good, or till they’re gone for good.”

    Her niece, Sandy Branam, said the same of Whitted — that she’ll never overcome what happened to her mother and uncle in 1992.

    Branam was 15 years old when her mother was murdered. She remembers it better than her younger brother and sister, who she said, “got cheated,” to have their mother killed at “such a young age.”

    Branam said they were a close family, and after their mom died, her dad tried his best to raise them.

    “I do think my life could’ve been different if my momma would’ve been here,” Branam said.

    She got into some trouble with drugs not long ago and was arrested, but said she found her way out of the trouble and is doing better now.

    It’s hard for Branam to see that Sutton and Dellinger haven’t been executed almost 25 years after their original date was set. Although, she said, God has a plan.

    “That’s a long time to sit there and think about what they’ve done,” Branam said, adding that her family still doesn’t understand why her mother and uncle were killed.

    “You can have a snake in your grass, right by your back door,” Branam said, “and not even know it.”

    (source: thedailytimes.com)
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  5. #15
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    Dellinger’s case has been stayed by the federal district court pending a resolution of his Atkins claim in state court.

    https://law.justia.com/cases/federal...404/55225/202/
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

  6. #16
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Edited:

    Man convicted of murder in Blount County dies on death row

    By Gregory Raucoules
    WATE News

    KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — A man convicted of murder in Blount County has died of apparent natural causes after more than 25 years on death row.

    eath row inmate James Dellinger, 71, died at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville just before noon Monday.

    A Tennessee Department of Correction release said his death appeared to be of natural causes but the exact cause of death is pending official review by the medical examiner.

    Dellinger was sentenced to death in 1996 after his First Degree Murder conviction in Blount County.

    He and his nephew, Gary Wayne Sutton, were convicted in the 1992 murder of Tommy Griffin. They had previously been convicted of murdering Griffin’s sister, Connie Branam.
    Sutton, 57, remains on death row.

    https://www.wate.com/news/blount-cou...-on-death-row/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  7. #17
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    This is honestly unacceptable. Tennessee (and the others) needs to stop coddling their death row inmates. They don’t deserve to die a natural death like law abiding citizens
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

  8. #18
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Great news another fake death sentence actually gate keeps a guy from getting free before his death.
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  9. #19
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    This wasn’t a “fake death sentence”. Had TN not screwed up twice he would’ve been executed already.
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

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