Brain Scans of Tennessee Man Who Admits to Killing Eight Convince Prosecutors to Drop Death Penalty

On August 16, 2023, Michael Cummins, who was fac­ing the death penal­ty for the 2019 killings of eight indi­vid­u­als in rur­al Tennessee, pled guilty to all eight counts of first-degree mur­der in exchange for life in prison with­out parole. Sumner County District Attorney Ray Whitley told the press that he had reversed his deci­sion to seek a death sen­tence and agreed to the plea based on new evi­dence regard­ing Mr. Cummins’ men­tal health. That evi­dence includ­ed Mr. Cummins’ brain scans, which showed ​“sig­nif­i­cant prob­lems” and impair­ment of brain activ­i­ty. DA Whitley told the press that his deci­sion was also relat­ed to the length of death penal­ty pro­ceed­ings. ​“We want­ed to bring final­i­ty to the case because if he had have got­ten the death penal­ty, this case would have gone on for years and years and gone from court to court,” said DA Whitley. 

In addi­tion to the eight con­sec­u­tive life sen­tences Mr. Cummins faces for the mur­der of his par­ents, uncle and five oth­ers, he was sen­tenced to an addi­tion­al ten years for the attempt­ed mur­der of his grand­moth­er, who sur­vived her attack. Mr. Cummins was orig­i­nal­ly set for tri­al in April 2023 when the new evi­dence brought a halt to the pro­ceed­ings. The plea bar­gain announced at the sen­tenc­ing hear­ing on August 16^th was agreed to be the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims, who had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to express the pain they have felt since the loss of their loved ones. Steven McGlothlin, the broth­er, and uncle of two of the vic­tims, told the court that ​“it’s one thing to lose some­one in a nat­ur­al occur­rence, but it’s some­thing total­ly dif­fer­ent to deal with some­thing as heinous as this.” Speaking direct­ly to Mr. Cummins, Mr. McGlothlin told the court that he ​“hope[s] God for­gives [him]… because he is the only one.” 

DA Whitley is hope­ful that the sen­tenc­ing of Mr. Cummins might help the vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers to move for­ward in their heal­ing process­es with­out hav­ing to wor­ry about attend­ing addi­tion­al court dates and hear­ings. ​“Closure is an overused word because they’ll nev­er get clo­sure when they’re los­ing their loved ones, but it’ll bring final­i­ty to this guy.” Mr. Cummins, who has a lengthy crim­i­nal record and his­to­ry of vio­lence, has a doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of men­tal health issues. The pre­sid­ing judge, Honorable Dee David Gay, is also hope­ful that the guilty pleas will help bring clo­sure to the fam­i­lies. ​“Mr. Cummins will nev­er see life out­side of Tennessee State Penitentiary… you can rest easy with that.”