By a vote of 79 – 14, the Tennessee House of Representatives passed bipar­ti­san leg­is­la­tion cre­at­ing a study com­mis­sion to exam­ine the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem. A sim­i­lar mea­sure unan­i­mous­ly passed the state’s Senate in May, just one month after the American Bar Association issued a report find­ing that the state was not in full com­pli­ance with most of the bench­marks estab­lished to guar­an­tee a fair death penal­ty sys­tem.

The new com­mis­sion will con­sist of rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the House, Senate, and Governor’s admin­is­tra­tion, as well as pros­e­cu­tors, defense attor­neys, vic­tims’ advo­cates, and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the National Alliance on Mental Illness. The com­mis­sion mem­bers are expect­ed to review Tennessee’s death penal­ty sys­tem for one year fol­low­ing their appoint­ment.

Stacy Rector, Executive Director the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing, not­ed, ​“Tennessee’s death penal­ty sys­tem is dan­ger­ous­ly bro­ken, and the leg­is­la­ture should be com­mend­ed for acknowl­edg­ing these flaws and tak­ing steps to fix them.… Tennessee has a death row of over 100 indi­vid­u­als and the largest legal orga­ni­za­tion in the coun­try has said that we do not even have the prop­er mech­a­nisms in place to guar­an­tee that we do not exe­cute an inno­cent per­son. Tennesseans deserve a sys­tem we can trust, and our cur­rent sys­tem doesn’t meet that stan­dard.”

(Press Release, Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing, June 7, 2007). Read the TCASK Press Release. See Recent Legislative Activity. 

Citation Guide