For convicted triple murderer, long road to execution
When convicted triple-murderer Sedrick Clayton was handed three death sentences by a Shelby County jury June 15, he became the first person in two years to be sent to death row in Tennessee — a state that has not executed an inmate since 2009.
At 31, Clayton will replace John Freeland, who turns 32 in November, as the youngest person on Tennessee’s death row.
Clayton will be housed at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, joining 74 other death row inmates who will likely remain there for years, often decades, until their executions are carried out.
Clayton was convicted on three counts of first-degree murder for the 2012 slayings of his girlfriend Pashea Fisher, and her parents Arithio and Patricia Fisher. He was also found guilty of the attempted murder of Pashea’s brother A’Reco Fisher, employment and use of a firearm during a dangerous offense and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.
Prior to receiving an execution date, Clayton will be entitled to a 12-step appeals process, a petition for post-conviction relief and a federal appeals process, said defense attorney Gerald Skahan.
“It’s a many years process,” he said. Skahan said his client will begin the appeals process within the thirty-day window following his sentencing for the four noncapital convictions on July 15.
“It’ll be a lengthy process,” said Karen Cook, who prosecuted the case with Deputy Dist. Atty. Jennifer Nichols.
“We tell families and interested parties that that’s what happens.”
Donald Strouth, convicted of murdering a used clothing store owner during a Sullivan County robbery in 1978, has been on death row for 36 years — longer than any other inmate awaiting execution in Tennessee.
Cook said that Tennessee’s capital punishment appeals process is especially thorough. “They’re given a lot more scrutiny it’s the ultimate penalty,” she said. “Hopefully another generation of prosecutors won’t be handling Sedrick Clayton.”
Though Clayton is not unique in receiving more than one death sentence, he joins just four others in having been given three. Only two inmates — Henry Jones and Jessie Dotson — have more.
A convicted serial killer, Jones was sentenced to death in both Shelby County and in Florida. He was given four death sentences, according to the Tennessee Department of Corrections.
Dotson was sentenced to death six times, one for each of his victims in the 2008 Lester Street massacre, which also left three young children seriously injured.
Paul Dennis Reid, known occasionally as the Fast Food Killer, received seven for a string of killings in the Nashville area. However, he died in 2013 before he could be executed.
Following a 40-year hiatus, the state did not resume executions until 2000, when Robert Glen Coe was put to death for the 1979 rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl.
Coe is one of six people executed in the state since 2000. Tennessee has executed at total of 131 people since 1916.
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