Charles Wright (pic­tured), a pris­on­er on Tennessee’s death row, may die of can­cer before the October 10, 2019 exe­cu­tion date that the state has set for him. His attor­neys and sup­port­ers, includ­ing a for­mer U.S. Congressman, are seek­ing clemen­cy so Wright can spend his final days with his fam­i­ly. Wright has prostate can­cer that has spread to his bones, and was recent­ly moved from Tennessee’s death-row facil­i­ty to a prison infir­mary. He is ask­ing the gov­er­nor to either reduce his sen­tence to time served or to life with­out parole, allow­ing him to apply for a med­ical fur­lough, a spe­cial release that can be grant­ed to ter­mi­nal­ly ill pris­on­ers, but not to those on death row.

In September 2018, for­mer Congressman Bob Clement wrote to then-Governor Bill Haslam, ask­ing Haslam to grant clemen­cy to Wright. ​“It is clear to me that Charles is not among the ​‘worst of the worst’ for whom the ulti­mate pun­ish­ment is to be reserved,” Clement wrote. ​“He was a prod­uct of his envi­ron­ment and the depri­va­tion in which he — I will not say ​‘was raised’ as the fact is, Charles and his sib­lings basi­cal­ly raised them­selves. He turned to drugs ear­ly in his teenage years — he was four­teen or fif­teen when an old­er drug deal­er put a hero­in nee­dle in Charles’ arm. Charles does not absolve him­self of his respon­si­bil­i­ty for mak­ing wrong choic­es.” Clement’s father, Frank Clement, served as gov­er­nor of Tennessee in the 1960s, and com­mut­ed all the state’s death sen­tences in 1965, after the leg­is­la­ture defeat­ed an abo­li­tion bill by one vote.

In court fil­ings, Wright’s attor­neys also raised issues of arbi­trari­ness and racial bias. Wright, who is Black, was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for a drug-relat­ed dou­ble-homi­cide in 1985. According to his attor­neys, cap­i­tal cas­es in the 1980s were infect­ed with racial bias, and Wright’s case exem­pli­fies the arbi­trari­ness of Tennessee’s death penal­ty. While Wright was sen­tenced to death, many oth­er drug-relat­ed mur­ders have result­ed in life sen­tences, even when there were more than two vic­tims. A 2018 study of Tennessee’s death-penal­ty sys­tem called it ​“a cru­el lot­tery” and found that the best indi­ca­tors of whether a case would result in a death sen­tence were arbi­trary fac­tors such as where the mur­der occurred, the race of the defen­dant, the qual­i­ty of the defense, and the views of the pros­e­cu­tors and judges assigned to the case.

(Steven Hale, Attorneys and Supporters Seek Clemency for Nashville Man Dying on Death Row, Nashville Scene, January 16, 2019.) See Clemency and Arbitrariness.

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