“We don’t need more death. We need more care.”
In a December 9, 2025, opinion article in The Tennessean, Anna Lee, a murder-victim family member whose beloved great-uncle’s killer, Nick Sutton, was executed six years ago explains how the death penalty has not brought her family healing or justice. In the piece, Ms. Lee compassionately describes the long-term emotional and financial toll the capital punishment system imposes on families. She recalls how, before Mr. Sutton’s execution, Ms. Lee’s great-grandfather, the father of victim Charles Almon, pleaded for Mr. Sutton not to be killed. Ms. Lee explains that with every execution in Tennessee since her family’s, pain is “brought to the surface again, forcing us to relive this terrible moment in our lives.”
“Instead of offering tangible assistance for the long-term process of healing and recovery, the death penalty creates an ongoing emotional burden for families like mine, and an unnecessary financial burden for our state. With the opportunity for alternative judgments like life without the possibility of parole, there are sentences that are less expensive than pursuing the death penalty. There is no need to continue this costly system.”
This is not the first time Tennessee families have called for an end to capital punishment. Earlier this year, DPI reported on more than 50 Tennessee family members affected by violent crime open letter to Governor Bill Lee (R), arguing that the death penalty neither promotes healing nor supports their long-term recovery. Instead, they said it diverts state-funded resources away from services that could help them heal. The families urged the state to expand access to trauma-recovery services and violence-prevention programs.
Ms. Lee’s sentiments echo findings from a newly released report by Dr. Amelia Inglis, of The Death Penalty Project and University of Oxford Death Penalty Research Unit. The report details Dr. Inglis’ empirical study of how victims and their families are impacted by the death penalty. One of the study’s main conclusions is that capital punishment systems frequently deepen trauma rather than support recovery.
“The conclusions of this important report are clear: the death penalty serves no one. These findings show that capital punishment systems, alongside a litany of other well-documented flaws, can cause further trauma to those it claims to support.”
Dr. Inglis’ research also highlights that co-victims are not a monolithic group, and that their perspectives evolve over time. Among the 13 participants studied, six initially supported the death penalty, four were ambivalent, and three opposed it. However, as their cases progressed, their views shifted, and nine participants came to oppose capital punishment, while only two continued to support it only in “extreme circumstances.” The study found these shifting views were most often attributed to the emotional burden of prolonged legal proceedings, distrust in the system, and increased exposure to information about how capital punishment is administered — broader research suggests greater knowledge about the death penalty is strongly correlated with declining support for it.
[Death penalty cases cost] “countless judicial hours, money, legal resources, and [provide] no closure for the families of the victims. Resources spent on the death penalty could be better used for other programs”.
Evidence shows that support for and use of the death have declined in recent years, reflecting the views of family members and many others. In 2005, former Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Boyce Martin expressed serious reservations about use of the death penalty, similarly observing that it did nothing to help the families of victims. Fifteen years earlier, in 1990, it was also Judge Martin who upheld the conviction and death sentence of Tennessee death-row prisoner Harold Wayne Nichols, who was executed today, Thursday, December 11.
Anna Lee, “Tennessee must repeal the death penalty and support victims” The Tennessean, Dec. 9, 2025.
