| Litigants: | Payne v. Tennessee |
| Arguedate: | April 24 |
| Argueyear: | 1991 |
| Decidedate: | June 27 |
| Decideyear: | 1991 |
| Fullname: | Pervis Tyrone Payne v. Tennessee |
| Oralargument: | https://www.oyez.org/cases/1990/90-5721 |
| Usvol: | 501 |
| Uspage: | 808 |
| Parallelcitations: | 111 S.Ct. 2597; 115 L. Ed. 2d 720 |
| Prior: | State v. Payne, 791 S.W.2d 10 (Tenn. 1990); cert. granted, . |
| Holding: | The admission of a victim impact statement does not violate the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the Eighth Amendment. |
| Majority: | Rehnquist |
| Joinmajority: | White, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter |
| Concurrence: | O'Connor |
| Joinconcurrence: | White, Kennedy |
| Concurrence2: | Scalia |
| Joinconcurrence2: | O'Connor, Kennedy |
| Concurrence3: | Souter |
| Joinconcurrence3: | Kennedy |
| Dissent: | Marshall |
| Joindissent: | Blackmun |
| Dissent2: | Stevens |
| Joindissent2: | Blackmun |
| Overturned Previous Case: | Booth v. Maryland (1987) South Carolina v. Gathers (1989) |
Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808 (1991), was a United States Supreme Court case authored by Chief Justice William Rehnquist which held that testimony in the form of a victim impact statement is admissible during the sentencing phase of a trial and, in death penalty cases, does not violate the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the Eighth Amendment.[1] Payne overturned two of the Courts' precedents: Booth v. Maryland (1987) and South Carolina v. Gathers (1989).[2] [3]
Pervis Tyrone Payne (born March 1, 1967) was the defendant in this trial prosecuted in Tennessee. According to his criminal conviction, on Saturday, June 27, 1987, he attempted to rape an acquaintance of his, Charisse Christopher, and murdered her and her two-year-old daughter, Lacie Jo. Neighbors allegedly heard noises and yelling, and called the police. Upon arriving, a police officer "immediately encountered Payne who was leaving the apartment building, so covered in blood that he appeared to be 'sweating blood'".
The defendant, in contrast, said that he was in the building on a visit to his girlfriend and hearing screams from the room of the murder victims he went in to help. Payne and many other witnesses saw a man leaving the crime scene shortly before Payne arrived. He had found the knife still stuck in the throat of Charisse and pulled it out. He fled when he saw police arrive.
The police found "a horrifying scene." Forty-two stab wounds were on Charisse's body, and Lacie Jo and Nicholas, Charisse's three-year-old son, had suffered stab wounds as well.[4] Payne fled to his girlfriend's house, and discarded his clothes, which were allegedly soaked in blood. Meanwhile, Nicholas Christopher held in his intestines while the emergency medical technicians transported him to the emergency room. The physical evidence implicating the defendant was: his fingerprints on cans of malt liquor, the victims' blood soaked into his clothes, and his property left at the scene of the crime.
Dozens of witnesses, including the police, friends, the neighbors, and experts, testified at the trial. The evidence that he perpetrated the attacks was "overwhelming," according to Chief Justice Rehnquist. Payne denied the charges, claiming he came upon the bloody victims. The district attorney stressed, in his closing arguments, the senselessness of the killings, the violence displayed by the defendant, and the innocence of the victims. The jury convicted him of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder and a related charge.
At the sentencing phase, the judge allowed both the public defender to adduce mitigating testimony from the defendant's friends and family, and the district attorney (DA) to introduce evidence from the grandmother/mother of the victims. Payne appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court, and then asked for a writ of certiorari from the United States Supreme Court. Certiorari was granted, with the Court noting that it would have to reconsider its past precedent. The case was argued on April 24, 1991 and decided on June 27, 1991.[5]
The Court held that testimony in the form of a victim impact statement was admissible and constitutional in death penalty cases, overturning Booth v. Maryland (1987) and South Carolina v. Gathers (1989). In Booth the Court stated that victim impact statements had nothing to do with the "blameworthiness of a particular defendant".[6]
Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Rehnquist provided a variety of reasons for the decision to allow victim impact statements:
Justices Stevens and Marshall wrote dissenting opinions, with Justice Blackmun joining each of them.[7]
Payne has had a significant, ongoing impact in victim's rights, criminology, stare decisis, and the lives of the parties involved.
The case allowed victim impact statements in U.S. courts, and the overwhelming majority of states now allow such use in the sentencing phase of trials, and was a significant development in the victims' rights movement.[8] One scholar wrote:
Another scholar calls the verdict in Payne an example of "symbolic violence."[9] It was pointed out that:
The case was one in a line of cases that showed how the Rehnquist Court shifted to the conservative or "right" on criminal cases.[10] The case is cited by at least one major college text book as a "capstone case."[11] Colin Starger has pointed out that the current split in the Court's jurisprudence between "strong" and "weak" conceptions of stare decisis (both of which are ultimately descended from a 1932 dissenting opinion by Louis Brandeis) arises from the disagreement between the Rehnquist majority opinion and the Marshall dissenting opinion in this case.[12]
Payne's execution was stayed in April 2007,[13] and after protracted litigation,[14] [15] again scheduled in December 2007,[16] and stayed again that month.[17] [18] [19] [20]
Payne was later scheduled to be executed on December 3, 2020.[21] However, he was granted a temporary reprieve until April 9, 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Tennessee.[22] [23]
Payne continues to maintain his innocence and has attracted supporters such as The Innocence Project[24] and The Southern Christian Leadership Conference[25] founded by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In September 2020, DNA testing was ordered to investigate Paynes claims of innocence.[26]
On November 18, 2021, the Shelby County District Attorney General announced that Payne was no longer on death row and would instead serve two consecutive life sentences. Since 2002, executions of people with intellectual disabilities have been ruled unconstitutional in the United States, and a law passed by the Tennessee General Assembly in April 2021 allowed for death row inmates to appeal their sentences on intellectual disability grounds. After a review of the evidence, Payne was found to have an intellectual disability, making him ineligible for execution.[27] [28] [29] On January 31, 2022, Payne was resentenced to two concurrent life sentences, including credit for time served for an assault charge; Payne will be eligible for parole by 2027.[30]