After decades on death row and relative obscurity, Pervis Payne has recently seen a flurry of attention.
Since 2019, he’s gotten new lawyers, the Innocence Project has joined his defense, he’s had an execution date come and go, and Tennessee law has been changed to allow his intellectual disability claim to be heard.
At a rally Wednesday in Murfreesboro, supporters celebrated these developments and pressured prosecutors to reevaluate his case. About 30 supporters stood on a sunny and windy sidewalk next to rush-hour traffic, a block off Medical Center Parkway. They spaced themselves out to cover as much ground as possible.
“I just love all these people that are here that support him. He shouldn’t be on death row to begin with. I believe he should be a free man,” said Rudy Kalis, Payne’s spiritual advisor. “There’s nothing appropriate in killing the wrong person. So that’s why we’re all here.”
For the past year, people who believe in Pervis Payne’s innocence have stood on the same corner every Wednesday in Memphis. This week, on the anniversary of that first rally, they spread to more than a dozen locations across the country.
Kalis says he grieves for the victims in this case and, at the same time, believes in Payne’s innocence — and he feels urgency that Payne could receive an execution date at any time.
Despite the circumstances, the Murfreesboro rally felt like a celebration. After 33 years in prison, this was the first major action for Payne in Middle Tennessee, the home of his sister Rolanda Holman. Payne’s supporters plan to hold weekly rallies in downtown Nashville organized by American Baptist College.
“Hope is the expectation, the anticipation that something good is going to happen,” Holman said. “It is the assurance that it hasn’t happened yet, but it will. And that’s what we hold on to.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled the last name of Pervis Payne’s spiritual advisor. It’s Kalis, not Kaylis.
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