Court Ruling Makes Formerly Death-Sentenced Pervis Payne Eligible for Parole in Four Years

On August 30, 2023, the Tennessee Criminal Court of Appeals affirmed a low­er court’s rul­ing that for­mer­ly death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Pervis Payne can serve his two life sen­tences con­cur­rent­ly, mak­ing him eli­gi­ble to apply for parole in less than four years. Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan resen­tenced Mr. Payne in 2022 to two life sen­tences with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole after pros­e­cu­tors con­ced­ed that they could not dis­prove Mr. Payne’s claim that he is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled and there­fore inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. The state appealed Judge Skahan’s rul­ing, ask­ing that Mr. Payne’s sen­tences run consecutively.

In response to the Court of Criminal Appeals’ rul­ing, Kelley Henry, Mr. Payne’s attor­ney, said, ​“The Court of Criminal Appeals reached a just result today, but it was also the only cor­rect result under Tennessee law. Tennessee law pre­sumes that sen­tences will run con­cur­rent­ly (at the same time), unless the State can prove that con­sec­u­tive sen­tenc­ing (one after the oth­er) is nec­es­sary to pro­tect the pub­lic. The State failed to meet its bur­den because Pervis Payne isn’t a threat to any­one and he nev­er was, at any point in his life.”

Mr. Payne has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained his inno­cence in the mur­der of Charisse Christopher and her 2‑year-old daugh­ter. His 1988 tri­al was taint­ed by racial bias, and he was unable to present evi­dence that he is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled. His legal team worked for near­ly two decades to have a court hear his claim of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. Until 2021, Tennessee had no legal mech­a­nism for chal­leng­ing death sen­tences that were upheld on appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2002 rul­ing in Atkins v. Virginia, the deci­sion which held the death penal­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al for indi­vid­u­als with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. Mr. Payne’s attor­neys filed his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claim the day after the 2021 law went into effect allow­ing him to chal­lenge his death sentence.

Payne faced an exe­cu­tion date in December 2020 that was reprieved due to the COVID-19 pandemic.