Members of an American Bar Association Assessment Team have urged Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen to extend the state’s cur­rent mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions so that a more thor­ough review of the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment laws can be con­duct­ed. The sev­en-mem­ber team also offered 14 rec­om­men­da­tions to address prob­lems iden­ti­fied dur­ing their review of Tennessee’s death penal­ty. Racial and geo­graph­ic dis­par­i­ties in cap­i­tal cas­es, poor­ly trained defense attor­neys, heavy case­loads for those rep­re­sent­ing defedants, and inad­e­quate pro­ce­dures to address inno­cence claims, were among the areas of con­cern men­tioned in their report.

Among the rec­om­men­da­tions were calls for an inde­pen­dent com­mis­sion to con­sid­er inno­cence claims, imple­men­ta­tion of a pol­i­cy that would ensure preser­va­tion of DNA evi­dence in cap­i­tal cas­es, improved train­ing for cap­i­tal defense attor­neys, and imple­men­ta­tion of a law that would pro­tect those with seri­ous men­tal dis­abil­i­ties from fac­ing exe­cu­tion.

In February 2007, Governor Bredesen called for a 90-day halt to exe­cu­tions to give the state time to con­sid­er con­cerns about how inmates are put to death by lethal injec­tion and elec­tro­cu­tion. That mora­to­ri­um is sched­uled to end on May 2, and the state has sched­uled an exe­cu­tion for May 9.

​“Governor Bredesen clear­ly has giv­en sober con­sid­er­a­tion to how exe­cu­tions are car­ried out in Tennessee. Now it is time for him and for the state as a whole to devote even more thor­ough analy­sis to how the state reach­es the deci­sion to sen­tence some­one to death,” said ABA President Karen J. Mathis.

The Tennessee assess­ment team includ­ed a for­mer pros­e­cu­tor, a fed­er­al judge, defense attor­neys, and lawyers in pri­vate prac­tice. The ABA has issued sim­i­lar reports in five oth­er states: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Indiana. In the com­ing months, assess­ment teams in Ohio and Pennsylvania are expect­ed to com­plete their state reviews and issue their find­ings.

(The Tennessean, April 23, 2007, and ABA Tennessee Death Penalty Assessment Team Report — Executive Summary, April 2007). Read the Executive Summary. Read the Full Report. See also Studies, Representation, Race, and Lethal Injection.
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