Tennessee

Swipe to see some of Tennessee’s most notable death penalty cases. 

Mr. Carruthers is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on May 21, 2026. He was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for his alleged involve­ment in the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of Marcellos Anderson, Delois Anderson, and Frederick Tucker in 1994. Mr. Carruthers has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained his inno­cence, and foren­sic evi­dence has nev­er con­nect­ed him to the crime. His con­vic­tion relied almost entire­ly on the tes­ti­mo­ny of a jail­house infor­mant, who was paid for his tes­ti­mo­ny, and DNA col­lect­ed from the crime scene has nev­er been com­pared to anoth­er sus­pect in the case.

Ms. Pike is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on September 30, 2026, and would be the first woman exe­cut­ed in Tennessee in more than 200 years and the only per­son exe­cut­ed in the state for a crime com­mit­ted at age 18, 19, or 20 in the mod­ern death penal­ty era. In 1995, at 18 years old, Ms. Pike and two oth­er teens killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, whom they knew from the Knoxville Job Corps. Ms. Pike was the only indi­vid­ual to be cap­i­tal­ly charged. Her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17 years old, received a life sen­tence, and is now eli­gi­ble for parole, while Shadolla Peterson, who was 18, tes­ti­fied against Ms. Pike and Mr. Shipp and received probation.

Mr. Black was exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion in August 2025, despite a 2022 request from Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk to vacate his death sen­tence, argu­ing that Mr. Black had intel­lec­tu­al­ dis­ability and was there­fore inel­i­gi­ble to be exe­cut­ed. During his exe­cu­tion, Mr. Black unex­pect­ed­ly and repeat­ed­ly groaned over the course of sev­er­al min­utes and expressed clear­ly that he was in pain. His autop­sy found evi­dence of ​“pul­monary con­ges­tion and ede­ma”– defined as an abnor­mal buildup of flu­id in the lungs which experts say can pro­duce sen­sa­tions of ​“doom, pan­ic, drown­ing, and asphyx­i­a­tion.”

In December 2021, after more than 34 years after hav­ing been sen­tenced to death, Mr. Abdur’Rahman was resen­tenced to three con­sec­u­tive life terms. Nashville Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins approved the resen­tenc­ing after accept­ing a stip­u­la­tion by the District Attorney’s Office that for­mer Davidson County Assistant District Attorney John Zimmerman had uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly exer­cised his dis­cre­tionary jury strikes to exclude Black prospec­tive jurors from serv­ing in Mr. Abdur’Rahman’s 1987 cap­i­tal tri­al. Former District Attorney Glenn Funk, tes­ti­fy­ing in the case, told the court that pros­e­cu­tion notes from Mr. Abdur’Rahman’s jury selec­tion and com­ments DA Zimmerman made dur­ing a state-wide pros­e­cu­tors’ train­ing pro­gram in which he advo­cat­ed race-based use of jury strikes amount­ed to a ​“smok­ing gun of racial bias” in the case. During his more than three decades on death row, Mr. Abdur’Rahman had twice come with­in days of exe­cu­tion before court deci­sions issued stays that allowed him to con­tin­ue to lit­i­gate his case.

Mr. Payne’s case result­ed in the Supreme Court deci­sion Payne v. Tennessee(1991), which allowed lim­it­ed vic­tim impact state­ments to be heard in the sen­tenc­ing phase of a tri­al. 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 has intel­lec­tu­al­ dis­ability., The pros­e­cu­tion employed racial stereo­types to por­tray Mr. Payne, a Black man, as a hyper­sex­u­al and vio­lent drug user, accus­ing him with­out evi­dence of attack­ing the white vic­tim when she refused to have sex with him. 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 final­ly chal­lenge his death sen­tence. Mr. Payne was removed from death row lat­er that year on evi­dence of his intellectual disability.

Mr. House is one of three death-sen­tenced indi­vid­u­als in Tennessee who have been exon­er­at­ed. Paul ​“Greg” House spent twen­­ty-two years on Tennessee’s death row before his exon­er­a­tion in 2009 and died at the age of 63 on March 25, 2025. Mr. House was sen­tenced to death in 1986 for the 1985 mur­der of his neigh­bor in Union County, Tennessee. He was con­vict­ed based on tes­ti­mo­ny from two wit­ness­es who plac­ed Mr. House near where the victim’s body was dis­cov­ered, along with blood and cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence. During Mr. House’s appeals, new DNA test­ing and oth­er evi­dence cast seri­ous doubt on his guilt, and oth­er evi­dence impli­cat­ed the victim’s hus­band in her mur­der. In June 2006, review­ing a deci­sion from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, the United States Supreme Court held that Mr. House had sat­is­fied the strict stan­dard to over­come pro­ce­dur­al default and allow his ​“gate­way” claim of inno­cence to pro­ceed. The Court fur­ther held that it was more like­ly than not that no rea­son­able juror would have con­vict­ed Mr. House beyond a rea­son­able doubt had they been pre­sent­ed with the new DNA evi­dence. He was released on bond in 2008 while pros­e­cu­tors attempt­ed to retry him; they ulti­mate­ly dropped all charges in 2009.