The Death Penalty Delayed Tweet
Photo via pervispayne.org
Tennessee’s highest officials and its highest courts have heard pleas for mercy, arguments pointing to systemic injustice and claims of innocence. But it took a once-in-a-century pandemic to move them to pause the state’s historic execution spree.
On Feb. 20, the state executed Nick Sutton, the seventh man put to death in Tennessee in 18 months. His electrocution was a continuation of a run of state killings unlike any seen here since the 1940s. Gov. Bill Lee has allowed four executions since taking office, just as his predecessor allowed three with a detached, false neutrality, as if it wasn’t a governor’s place to get too involved in this ugly business. Then the coronavirus breached the borders of our country and our state, and the walls of our prisons. The death chamber, like so much else, was temporarily closed. First the Tennessee Supreme Court, which rescheduled two executions, then the go