A Tennessee judge did not have the authority to give Pervis Payne, who was formerly on death row, concurrent sentences of life in prison after ruling that he was intellectually disabled and could not be executed for two 1987 killings, the state Supreme Court said Monday.
The court’s ruling said a Memphis judge lacked the jurisdiction to give Payne two life sentences to run at the same time rather than one after the other. The concurrent sentences allowed Payne to be eligible for parole in 2026 — 30 years earlier than if the sentences were consecutive.
The Supreme Court did not issue the consecutive life sentences for Payne in its ruling. Instead, it returned the matter to the trial court in Memphis for further proceedings.
Payne had been on death row for the killings of a woman and her 2-year-old daughter. In January 2022, Judge Paula Skahan sentenced Payne to concurrent sentences of life with the possibility of parole after ruling in November 2021 that his death sentences must be vacated because he was intellectually disabled.
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The case has drawn national attention from anti-death-penalty activists and included the involvement of the Innocence Project, which argues for the use of DNA testing in cases claiming wrongful conviction. DNA tests failed to exonerate Payne.
Skahan’s ruling that Payne should be removed from death row was based on a Tennessee law passed earlier in 2021 that made prohibiting the execution of intellectually disabled people retroactive to past cases. Before the 2021 law, Tennessee had no mechanism for people to reopen a case to press an intellectual disability claim.
Executions of intellectually disabled people were ruled unconstitutional in 2002, when the U.S. Supreme Court found they violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Payne, 58, was convicted of first-degree murder for the killings of Charisse Christopher and her 2-year-old daughter, Lacie Jo, who were repeatedly stabbed in their Millington apartment and left in a pool of blood. Christopher’s son, Nicholas, who was 3 at the time, also was stabbed but survived.
Payne, who is Black, has always maintained his innocence. He told police he was at Christopher’s apartment building to meet his girlfriend when he heard the mother, who was white, screaming and tried to help. He said he panicked when he saw a white police officer and ran away.
During his murder trial, prosecutors said Payne was high on cocaine and looking for sex when he killed Christopher and her daughter in a “drug-induced frenzy.” Prosecutors said the evidence overwhelmingly pointed to Payne as the killer.
However, evidence presented by two experts showed Payne was intellectually disabled, while Payne’s supporters said he had taken significant steps in his rehabilitation while serving three decades in prison.
It was not immediately clear Monday when Payne would be eligible for parole under the Supreme Court’s decision. A hearing must be set to address the new ruling.
Payne’s lawyer, Kelley Henry, has pushed for Payne’s full exoneration.
“Pervis Payne remains incarcerated for a crime he did not commit,” she said in an email Monday. “We will continue to fight for his freedom and to bring him home to his family.”
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