TN Rep. Hawk’s bill to prevent executions of inmates that have intellectual disability continues to advance

A bill sponsored by Northeast Tennessee State Rep. David Hawk is working to prevent executions on inmates who have intellectual disabilities.

HB1062 and its senate companion are both being considered in respective committees. As of April 15, the house version is to be reviewed in the Calendar and Rules Committee, while the senate version, sponsored by Sen. Todd Gardenhire, is being reviewed in the Senate Calendar Committee.

The legislation would allow inmates who claim to have an intellectual disability that have already been sentenced to death to petition the court to reopen their case. This bill comes as death row inmate Pervis Payne, who was sentenced to die for the 1987 stabbing death of a mother and her two-year old daughter in Memphis, had his execution delayed by Gov. Bill Lee as he was granted a temporary reprieve. Payne’s defense attorneys argue Payne is intellectually disabled and thus ineligible to be executed.

The Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia in 2002 that executing someone who has an intellectual disability violates the US Constitution’s 8th amendment statute of cruel and unusual punishment.

Currently, there are only two inmates on death row with convictions from cases stemming in the Northeast Tennessee area, including Nickolus Johnson, sentenced to death for the 2004 murder of a Bristol, TN Police Officer, and Howard Willis, sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murder of a Georgia couple in Johnson City in 2002.