NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – A Tennessee death row inmate’s attorneys on Wednesday asked a court to declare that he cannot be executed because he is intellectually disabled.
The petition was filed in Memphis Criminal Court one day after Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill making retroactive Tennessee’s law that prohibits the execution of the intellectually disabled.
Such executions were ruled unconstitutional in 2002, when the U.S. Supreme Court found they violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. But until Tuesday, Tennessee’s law banning those executions didn’t apply to people who were sentenced to death before the law took effect.
Attorneys for Pervis Payne, 54, have long argued that he is intellectually disabled and helped push for the change to the law. The petition they filed on Wednesday includes IQ tests as well as declarations from teachers, employers, neighbors and family members attesting to Payne’s learning and functioning difficulties.
A sister seven years younger than Payne reported that when they were children, he was incapable of helping her with homework. Others said Payne could not count money or add up items at a store. He struggled to read and had a very limited vocabulary. Although he attended school through the 12th grade, he failed the proficiency test five times and was never able to graduate. A supervisor at Pizza Hut described him as “mentally challenged” and said he had difficulty remembering simple instructions.