NEWS (2/​20/​20): Tennessee exe­cut­ed Nicholas Sutton on February 20, 2020, one day after Governor Bill Lee denied a peti­tion for clemen­cy that had been sup­port­ed by sev­en cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers, five jurors, and mem­bers of the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies.

In two rul­ings short­ly before 7:30 p.m. Eastern time, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Sutton’s motions to halt the exe­cu­tion and declined to review his claims that he had been uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death. One peti­tion argued that he had been forced to attend the tri­al in shack­les and hand­cuffs in clear view of the jury, in vio­la­tion of his right to due process. A sec­ond plead­ing sought per­mis­sion to file a new peti­tion for writ of habeas cor­pus chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of one of the aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances on which his death sen­tence had been based.

Sutton was exe­cut­ed by elec­tro­cu­tion, opt­ing for death in the elec­tric chair after his chal­lenge to Tennessee’s three-drug exe­cu­tion pro­to­col had been turned down. He was the fourth pris­on­er exe­cut­ed in the U.S. in 2020 and the first in Tennessee. The oth­er three exe­cu­tions this year have been by lethal injection.