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Thread: Tennessee Capital Punishment History

  1. #1
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    Tennessee Capital Punishment History

    History

    Capital punishment has existed in Tennessee off and on throughout its history, although the methods have changed. Prior to 1913, the method of execution was hanging and there are few records of those executed by this method. Electrocution became the method of execution in 1916 after a two-year hiatus from the death penalty from 1913-1915. Then there was a period in the state when death row was empty. From 1972 until 1978, there were no inmates sentenced to death in Tennessee because of the U.S. Supreme Court declaring it unconstitutional. When the death penalty became legal in the state again in 1978, those inmates sitting on death row from1960 to 1978 had their sentenced commuted mostly to life.

    In 1998, the state legislature added lethal injection giving those inmates committing their crimes before January 1, 1999 the choice of electrocution or lethal injection. Legislation enacted in March 2000 specifies lethal injection as the primary method of execution. Inmates who committed their offense and were sentenced to death prior to January 1, 1999 may request electrocution.

    When capital punishment was reinstated in 1916, records were kept of those sentenced to death by the warden in an "official ledger" that accounted the name, crime, and the time of death of the 125 executed in Tennessee. From 1916 to 1960, all executions took place at the Tennessee State Penitentiary located in Nashville. Tennessee's first execution in nearly 40 years took place April 19, 2000 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution where Robert Glen Coe was executed by lethal injection.

    On February 1, 2007 Governor Bredesen issued an executive order directing the TDOC to review the manner in which the death penalty is administered. All executions were put on hold. On April 30, the department delivered revised death penalty protocols to Governor Bredesen. The moratorium was lifted on May 2, 2007.

    On September 12, 2007 Daryl Keith Holton became the first person to be executed by electrocution since 1960

    http://www.tn.gov/correction/media/deathpenalty.html

  2. #2
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Booker: Public hangings were popular in their day

    By the 1880s public hangings of convicted criminals in Knox County had become the ultimate punishment and one of the more popular spectator events. While I have not been able to document any lynchings in this county, I have read about numerous legal hangings by the sheriff. The locations for these executions seemed to depend on the number of spectators they might attract.

    The low-profile hangings took place at the Knox County Jail. Those that needed more space to accommodate a larger crowd were held near the end of the Gay Street Bridge in South Knoxville. Those that would attract innumerable masses were held off Western Avenue near the site of today's News Sentinel. It seems that any day in Knox County was a good day for a hanging.

    I was not aware of those hangings until I started research on the history of Knoxville College. In a report, the first president of the college, Dr. John McCulloch, said he did not allow students to go to public hangings. He was particularly concerned if the person to be hanged was black. From my readings, I can tell you that the Knox County rope was an equal-opportunity measure that stretched necks until 1908, when the state began using the electric chair.

    Our local newspapers were very graphic in describing these executions. They pictured the horrible mistakes made and sometimes painted gory scenes. The hanging methods were not always the same.

    Brothers Samuel and Milton Hodge were sentenced to hang for the murder of their brother-in-law, James McFarland. The 22- and 23-year-old men were taken in a wagon on Sept. 9, 1882, to their place of execution at the end of the Gay Street Bridge. There was no scaffold and no trap door to be sprung. There was only a cross beam with two nooses on it. The brothers stood up, had the ropes placed around their necks, and the wagon was driven off with them hanging there.

    John McPherson, the last man to die by hanging here, was sentenced on Nov. 4, 1907, for the murder of deputy sheriff William Walker. He appealed to the state Supreme Court in October 1907, but the court affirmed his sentence and set a new execution date of Dec. 11, 1907. Gov. M.R. Patterson then intervened and granted him a 30-day respite.

    McPherson received four more respites from the governor before he was hanged on March 4, 1908, in the Knox County Jail. He had requested that the public not be able to review his remains at the jail. Sheriff Reeder honored his last request.

    The situation was just the opposite for John Webb, who had been convicted of the murder of Richard T. Reynolds. He was hanged on the Western Avenue site Aug. 13, 1875, with a crowd of 12,000 people witnessing the event. The Knoxville Daily Press And Herald of Aug. 14, 1875, said, "There were whites and blacks, men and women, boys and girls, and infants in arms to witness the spectacle."

    The weirdest hanging turned out to be no hanging at all. Ernest Wells, who had been sentenced to hang for the murders of city policemen O.L. Jarnigan and Mike Wren, decided to use a piece of rope to cheat the hangman and hanged himself in his cell.

    The jailer found him in time and cut him down. Wells got a new trial, and on March 29, 1907, was sentenced to 12 years in prison on a charge of murder in the second degree. The Knoxville Journal and Tribune reported that "The action of the jury caused no surprise, although it was a distinct disappointment to many."

    http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/se...-in-their-day/

  3. #3
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    Hanging was an 'outrageous spectacle'

    They thronged to the island event in 1880 to see an execution ... and perhaps a resurrection.

    For several years beginning in 1878, Rutherford County homes and businesses were victimized by a multi-racial gang of thieves who usually burned the property they robbed. Arson and theft losses were valued at more than $50,000. The gang was described as a "secret society" of 15 or more "career criminals" who terrorized the local population.

    On May 16, 1879, John Hall and Burrell Smith, gang members and former slaves, attempted to rob the farm and general store of John S. Pugh near Murfreesboro. Pugh was awakened by a barking dog. When he confronted the thieves in his stable, he was shot and killed.

    This murder prompted one gang member to turn against the gang and to identify other members, including Hall and Smith. When the gang was rounded up, a lynch mob gathered. Only a personal appearance and plea by Gov. Albert Marks convinced the mob to leave the matter to the court. The arsonists were eventually convicted and given long sentences. Hall and Smith were convicted of first-degree murder and given the death penalty.

    The sheriff, however, could not find a suitable place for the executions within a mile of the courthouse, as required by law. Public grounds were deemed inappropriate, and private landowners refused. Finally, a Stones River island was made available by H.H. Kerr, a prosperous landowner. (Kerr owned a large tract extending west from the Nashville Pike. The gallows was in the river near the Tuckertown community, northwest of the courthouse.)

    As the gallows was constructed, Kerr built grandstands and concession booths. Meanwhile, local doctors and preachers became involved. Revs. G.D. Olden and Dempsey Childress performed full immersion baptisms on the condemned at the jail with a large congregation and choir attending. Both condemned men gave permission to local doctors to attempt to revive them with electricity after the hanging.

    On Feb. 20, 1880, a crowd of some 15,000 gathered to enjoy barbecue, peanuts, lemonade and liquor. Kerr sold tickets for grandstand seating. The condemned arrived by wagon wearing black shrouds. Smith entertained the crowd by requesting some cake from a concessionaire, saying he would die in peace if his request were granted. His lusty eating and expressions of pleasure brought cheers and laughter.

    After hymns and prayers led by the reverends, the trap was sprung. The crowd surged forward for a closer look. Portions of the grandstands collapsed. After the criminals were pronounced dead, their bodies were stimulated with electricity without any lasting effect. Nevertheless, it was a memorable event.

    Newspapers across the state, however, sharply criticized Rutherford County Sheriff Ed Arnold for the "outrageous public spectacle," focusing particularly on the "reserved seats and barbecue."

    These Rutherford executions prompted the legislature to change the law on public executions. As of March 22, 1883, the public would be allowed to see and hear the last words, the attendant prayers and reading of the death warrant, but the actual drop had to be obscured from public view.

    Sheriffs devised several ways to comply with the law. Some continued to build outdoor gallows, but would drape the lower portion so that the condemned would drop from sight when the trap was released. Others simply conducted hangings in the jailhouse.

    The "semi-private" hangings continued until the adoption of House Bill No. 72 in 1909. This act provided that "the execution of all persons condemned to death by the courts of this State shall be held within an enclosure of the penitentiary, at Nashville, in privacy and seclusion ... no witnesses shall be admitted except a priest or minister of the gospel, the prison physician, the Sheriff of the county in which the crime was committed, and such attendants as are necessary to properly carry out the execution." The new rule further provided that "members of the family of the condemned prisoner may be present to witness the execution."

    The first execution under the new rule involved a murder committed in Florence, a Rutherford County community located on the railroad between Smyrna and Murfreesboro. William Mitchell was the Florence railroad station agent. He slept in the station, but ate meals at the Vanderford boarding house near the station.

    E.S. Vanderford also owned a store and Squire H. William Hindman, another boarding house patron, was the store manager. On April 24, 1908, Mitchell shot and killed Hindman during a store robbery. Mitchell was convicted in a Murfreesboro trial under the felony murder doctrine since the killing occurred in the act of armed robbery. Mitchell claimed that he shot in self-defense.

    While jailed in Nashville awaiting execution, Mitchell was baptized in a prison bathtub.

    The night before his hanging, according to a Nashville Banner account, Mitchell said: "I have been forgiven of my sins and I am going to heaven. I feel that I can shake hands with Brother Hindman, and that he will understand. I did not mean to do him any harm."

    Reporting on the Oct. 1, 1909, hanging, local newspapers noted that people were generally pleased with the new procedures "doing away with the curious crowds and undue excitement," but a few were concerned that private hangings would not "deter others from the commission of crime."

    Legal execution by hanging ended in Tennessee in 1913 when the legislature replaced the old frontier method with new technology. Beginning with a 22-year-old Dyer County rapist in 1916, condemned Tennessee criminals died by electrocution. Among them was Albert "Bantam" Dubois. Executed in 1948, Dubois was the last from Rutherford County to die in "Old Sparky," the Tennessee electric chair.

    The crime was committed on Feb. 20, 1946, in the office of the Deluxe Cab Company, 118 W. Vine St., Murfreesboro. The office was in a 9-by-12 foot shed with one door, two chairs, a couch and a telephone. It was known as the "797 office" (the company telephone number was 797). Claude W. Holt and "Rooster" Messick were co-owners. The victim was Albert Willis, a cab driver.

    Before stabbing Willis, Dubois, described as a "town bully, morphine addict and bootlegger," bragged that he had "killed three men, cut twenty-seven, and had never served much time." (In 1936 Dubois was convicted of manslaughter in the knife slaying of George G. Snow during an argument at the City Café on the Public Square. Sentenced to 10 years, Dubois was paroled after 14 months.)

    Believing that Willis had "turned him up" to the police for a minor infraction (for which Dubois received nothing more than a warning), the "Bantam" spent a week brandishing a 10-inch blade and telling of his intent to kill the coward that had "turned him up." On the day of the killing, Dubois told Messick his plan and spent most of the day with buddies at the barber shop/pool hall on the square drinking and threatening.

    That evening Dubois and two of his cronies, Claude Higdon and James "Wren" Miller, went to the "797 office" where Willis, Messick, Buck Climer (another cabbie) and David Smithonson, the dispatcher, were working. Dubois, goaded on by Higdon and Miller, began accusing, threatening and haranguing Willis. According to trial testimony, Willis denied the accusations, remained calm, said he wanted no trouble, and started up from his chair to go home.

    As Willis stood to leave, Dubois hacked him on the forehead with the heavy knife, and then stabbed him near the left shoulder. As Dubois fled with Higdon and Miller, Messick and Climer carried Willis to the hospital where he died.

    At trial Dubois argued self-defense, alleging Willis had made threatening moves, but eyewitnesses testified otherwise. Defense also argued that Dubois was in a drug- and alcohol-induced "fog" and should not be held responsible for the crime. The jury was not persuaded and gave Dubois the death penalty; Miller and Higdon each got 20 years.

    Willis had a twin brother who wanted to be certain that Dubois was prosecuted and punished. To this end he hired John R. Rucker Sr. to assist the prosecutor and to help the victim's family understand the trial proceedings. Fifty years later Rucker recalled how he was hired for a total of $100 (all the Willis family could offer). "It gave me some good publicity, because the courthouse was filled every day ... a lot of good exposure."

    On appeal, attorneys for Dubois argued that it was error to permit the prosecutor to argue that "one who would commit such a crime in such a manner is not worthy to trod the soil of the penitentiary ground. If he is sent to the penitentiary and were to be pardoned or escape, you Gentlemen of the jury and everybody else would be in danger. Even your life and mine would be unsafe." The Tennessee Supreme Court held that it was not error for the prosecutor to argue for the death penalty.

    Just prior to his execution, the Bantam offered a new story attempting to exonerate his cronies. "They had nothing to do with it; I killed Willis in an argument over a cab."

    Crime writers in the 1950s, including Jack Setters and L. D. Miler, attributed an entirely different motive. Rutherford was a dry county and Dubois was allegedly buying liquor in Nashville, and smuggling large quantities into Rutherford for resale. Deliveries were done through the cab company. Willis was a target for intimidation because he refused to be a liquor courier.

    Dubois was electrocuted on April 11, 1947. After he was strapped into the chair, an electrical problem delayed the execution. (Bantam apparently holds the record for number of minutes alive in "Old Sparky.") The newspaper headline on April 12 read: "Faulty Wires Give Dubois 15-Minute Reprieve."

    Jim Haynes remembers when Bantam was returned to Rutherford County. After the execution, the state released the body to the family for burial. "His brother, Bob Dubois, was a tenant on my father's farm just north of the city limits. They set the open coffin on the dining room table in the tenant house for viewing. I was about 10 years old and had to stand on tiptoe to see him. His head was shaved and he looked all swollen."

    http://www.dnj.com/article/20110807/NEWS01/108070319

  4. #4
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    For lack of better placement

    The Death Penalty
    A Return of Capital Punishment to Tennessee


    The Code of Hammurabi, developed by the King of Babylon during his reign from 1792 until 1750 BCE, appears to be the first mention of “an eye for an eye” as a rule of law. The Code, which preceded the Old Testament by some 500 years, prescribes the death penalty for a variety of offenses. A chapter in Exodus not only parallels King Hammurabi’s precepts but contains several identical provisions. Although there are other references to “an eye for an eye” in the Pentateuch books, the first time it appears in the Bible is at Exodus 24:21. In his Sermon on the Mount, at Matthew 5:38-9 of the King James Version of the New Testament, Jesus rejects this form of retribution: “Ye have heard it said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil [deeds by another]: but whosoever shall smite on the right cheek turn to him the other.”

    This biblical contradiction illustrates the moral conflict in America on the issue of capital punishment. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have abolished the death penalty. Although thirty-one states have laws permitting capital punishment for first-degree murder, the Governors of Colorado, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington have declared moratoria. So, almost half of the states have done away with executions. Notably, all southern states, including Tennessee, continue to have statutes authorizing the penalty of death. While this state’s legislation, by substance and procedure, has undergone significant changes over the years, capital punishment has always been a part of its jurisprudence.

    Recently, Lewis Laska, a Nashville attorney and professor at Tennessee State University, conducted a comprehensive study of each and every execution from 1782, when Tennessee was part of North Carolina, until the last execution in 2009. Of the first ten to die, all by hanging, three were for horse theft, two for burglary, and five for murder. In 1797, one year after Tennessee had achieved statehood, Robert Parker, convicted of burglary in Grainger County, became the first to die by order of our state court system. According to Laska’s treatise, Legal Executions in Tennessee, 507 more individuals were put to death by this state until the United States Supreme Court’s landmark 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia temporarily halted all executions.

    On the night of August 13, 1967, William Henry Furman broke into a Savannah, Georgia residence. When discovered by the owner, William Micke, Furman attempted to flee and purportedly tripped. His gun discharged, and the bullet struck and killed Micke. One year later, Furman was convicted of murder in the commission of a felony under a Georgia statute and sentenced to death. Ultimately, the case made its way to the United States Supreme Court. By a 5-4 vote, our country’s highest court ruled that a sentence of death under the law and facts of the case qualified as “cruel and unusual punishment” and, therefore, violated the 8th Amendment to the Constitution. A majority of the justices further found that the lack of a uniform system setting out specific criteria before a sentence of death could be imposed also violated 14th Amendment due process. The case was unusual in that all nine justices filed separate opinions, but a majority clearly directed the states to develop legislation designed to narrow the class of those eligible for execution based upon specific guidelines. Because the ruling in Furman did not provide a precise method by which states could draft legislation compliant with the Constitution, the effect of the decision placed a moratorium on all executions for the next five years.

    In response to the Furman decision, Georgia, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and Louisiana all passed new but varying legislative initiatives attempting to satisfy the high court’s directive. In Georgia, the legislature set out a list of aggravating circumstances—such as a prior felony conviction or the killing of a police officer, judge, or prosecutor—before a first-degree murder conviction would warrant a jury to impose a death sentence. After his conviction for first-degree murder, Troy Leon Gregg was sentenced to death under this new statute. In 1976, the Supreme Court upheld Gregg’s sentence because the jury had found the presence of one or more aggravating circumstances, thus narrowing the class of individuals eligible for the death penalty. Utah became the first state to actually resume capital punishment after the decision in Gregg. In 1976, Gary Gilmore, who had been convicted of murder and sentenced to death, waived his appeals. On January 17, 1977, he was executed by a Utah firing squad. Two years later, John Arthur Spinkelink, after having exhausted his appeals to the highest state and federal courts, was put to death by electrocution in Florida, thus officially ending the Furman moratorium.

    Even though the decision in Gregg had allowed states to reinstate the death penalty, the Furman decision and other factors continued to delay executions in Tennessee. Prior to the Furman moratorium, the last individual to be executed in this state was an African American by the name of William Tines of the Lonsdale Community in Knox County. While on escape from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary, he had raped a white, middle-aged woman in Roane County. At the conclusion of a trial before Judge Sue Hicks, later immortalized in the Johnny Cash song “A Boy Named Sue,” a twelve-man Roane County jury returned a guilty verdict and imposed a sentence of death by electrocution. Our supreme court affirmed the conviction and later upheld the denial of a writ of habeas corpus. On November 7, 1960, a prison guard at the Nashville penitentiary pulled the switch.

    For almost 40 years thereafter, and despite remedial legislation, there were no executions in Tennessee. Post-conviction delays, especially in the federal system, may have been the primary cause, although that is subject to debate. Nevertheless, death row was reduced by one on April 19, 2000. Robert Glen Coe, after having exhausted all appeals, died by lethal injection. Some 21 years earlier, he had been convicted of the rape and murder of eight-year-old Cary Ann Medlin. Five more executions, each for first-degree murder involving aggravating circumstances as defined by our statute, took place between June 28, 2006 and December 2, 2009. All were by lethal injection except for that of Gulf War veteran Daryl Holton on September 12, 2007. After he had been left by his wife, Holton shot and killed each of their four minor children. Much like Gilmore, Holton chose to abandon his appeals. The difference was that Holton elected to die in the electric chair. In 2009, Cecil Johnson was the last Tennessean to be executed. In April of this year, there were 60 males and one female on death row, all convicted of first-degree murder; Christa Pike is the only woman, one of the six scheduled to die who were convicted in Knox County.

    For reasons related primarily to the constitutional propriety of death by lethal injection and the availability of the requisite drugs for that purpose, almost nine years have passed since Cecil Johnson’s execution. That may change on August 9. Some thirty-five years ago, Billy Ray Irick, while serving as a sitter for five children, brutally raped and sodomized seven-year-old Paula Dyer. Afterward, near midnight, Irick telephoned the stepfather at his place of work and stated, “I can’t wake her up.” Although still breathing when the stepfather arrived, Paula, bruised and bleeding, could not be resuscitated after being taken to Children’s Hospital. The autopsy determined that she died of asphyxiation. After a 1986 trial before then Knox County Criminal Court Judge John J. Duncan, Jr., a jury found that several aggravating circumstances applied, including that the offenses were “especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel.” Since then, Irick exhausted all traditional means of appeal in the state and federal courts. On January 11 of this year, the United States Supreme Court denied relief on his claim that death by lethal injection was “cruel and unusual.” Absent intervention by Governor Haslam, who has the power to commute the sentence to life imprisonment, or a last-minute reprieve by the courts, Irick will die by lethal injection next month—the 515th execution in this state since 1797.

    http://cityviewmag.com/the-death-penalty/
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  5. #5
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    First conservative TN Supreme Court in decades changed rule, paving way for Irick execution

    By Jamie Satterfield
    The Knoxville News-Sentinel

    A Tennessee Supreme Court with a conservative-leaning majority for the first time in decades took direct aim at death penalty opponents in its refusal to block convicted killer Billy Ray Irick’s scheduled execution.

    The high court earlier this week turned aside Irick’s last-minute bid to avoid death in the 1985 rape and murder of seven-year-old Paula Dyer in Knox County via a challenge of the state Department of Correction lethal injection protocol.

    'Convincing drug companies'

    In a footnote in a decision by a majority of Republican appointees, the high court blamed “anti-death-penalty advocates” for robbing TDOC of sources of supply for lethal injection drugs and creating legal battles as a result.

    “It bears noting at this point that TDOC’s revisions of its lethal injection protocol since 2010 have been necessitated by the success anti-death-penalty advocates have had in convincing drug companies not to provide certain drugs for use in executions,” the panel’s majority opinion stated.

    Stacy Rector, executive director of the Tennesseans Against the Death Penalty advocacy group, said death penalty opponents she works with don’t lobby drug makers or suppliers.

    “We don’t do that,” she said. Instead, Rector said, they lobby voters and policymakers.“Our focus is education,” she said. “We think the whole policy is broken and dysfunctional, and not working in Tennessee. Regardless of the method of execution, we are working to end the death penalty as a policy, period.”

    Ideological shift

    The make-up of the state Supreme Court changed in 2015 when Democratic appointee Gary Wade stepped down as justice. That was the same year the high court enacted a rule that the now conservative-leaning majority is using to bar Irick from a reprieve.

    The panel changed the rule without inviting public comment by approaching it as an amendment. The change created a legal barrier for last-minute reprieves for the condemned for matters that have nothing to do with whether they are guilty or should be executed for their crime.

    The condemned now must prove they can win an appeal of their "collateral" legal argument using a "likelihood of success" standard, which mirrors current U.S. Supreme Court case law and streamlines the appellate process for the condemned in Tennessee.

    “The present case is the first case presented to this Court governed by the amended version of (the rule),” the majority wrote in its denial of the stay. “Consequently, to obtain a stay at this time, Mr. Irick must establish a likelihood of success, and he has failed to satisfy this standard.”

    Majority: Rush accusation 'astonishing'

    Justice Sharon Lee was the lone dissenter in denying Irick, 59, a stay. She and Justice Cornelia A. Clark are the sole Democratic appointees on the five-judge high court panel.

    She conceded she was on the panel that approved the rule change. But she accused the majority of a “rush to execution” and pushed for a brief delay – to allow Irick to live long enough for a full appellate review of the lethal injection drug protocol he and 32 other condemned inmates are challenging as too painful to pass constitutional muster.

    The majority pushed back.

    “In fact, this suggestion is astonishing, actually, given that Mr. Irick was convicted and sentenced thirty-two years ago and has obtained multiple stays over the years,” the majority wrote.

    The majority opinion does not bear the name of the author and is supposed to reflect the collective opinion of the four justices in the majority – Chief Justice Jeffry S. Bivins and Justices Holly Kirby, Roger Page and Clark.

    More powers, less precedent

    The majority – with Lee often the sole dissenter – has been tilting in its decisions and rulemaking toward drawing Tennessee law into line with U.S. Supreme Court decisions and standards – even when the state’s Constitution has been interpreted by liberal-leaning Tennessee Supreme Court panels as providing greater protections for the accused than its federal counterpart.

    In the past two years, the high court has approved the limited use of a federal exception for law enforcers who make mistakes in drafting or executing search warrants, overturning the court’s own decades-long precedent that afforded no such break.

    The court has broadened law enforcers’ authority to carry out warrantless searches and – as shown in Irick’s case – raised the hurdle for the condemned trying to outrun execution.

    Veteran defense attorney Stephen Ross Johnson has watched high courts tilt – in Tennessee and across the country – in recent years toward what he called a reverse federalism.

    “The modern trend is for state courts to adopt federal constitutional standards in interpreting state constitutions and other legal standards,” he said. “In relatively recent times, Tennessee has followed suit.”

    Swinging pendulum?

    Johnson said when the U.S. Supreme Court decades ago began tilting in its rulings toward broader police powers and fewer protections for accused, state supreme courts and state legislatures across the country beefed up protections in their own laws.

    “The pendulum has now swung the other way in Tennessee and elsewhere,” he said Wednesday. “… in an effort to have uniformity of law, many state courts are reversing decades of their precedent and tacking to federal decisions.

    “In my opinion, this trend is not a positive one, since it concentrates too much power in too few decision makers - namely nine judges in Washington, DC - and further removes the states from the individual laboratories of democracy they were intended to be by our nation’s founders,” he said.

    Irick is now under death watch. He is scheduled to be executed Thursday evening in Nashville.

    https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/...ick/934286002/

  6. #6
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    The entrance to TN’s death row
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