Myths vs. Facts
MYTH
The death penalty is fair.
FACT
Tennessee’s death penalty makes false promises, harming victims.
- Tennessee’s death penalty makes false promises to victims’ families as fewer than 1 in 20 death sentences over the last 50 years have resulted in an execution.[i]
- A death sentence is 12 times more likely to be reversed as a result of a court decision than it is to result in an execution.[ii]
- For every four people executed in Tennessee, approximately one person has been exonerated and released from death row.
- Surviving families of murder victims spend decades in a legal process that keeps them trapped in their trauma. Alternative sentences would provide legal finality much sooner, sometimes as soon as the trial is over.
Tennessee’s death penalty risks innocent lives.
- Though it costs Tennessee taxpayers millions more per case than the alternative sentences, the death penalty still gets it wrong. At least 189 people in the U.S., who were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death, have been exonerated and freed since 1972. That is one person exonerated and released for every 8.2 people who were executed (189 exonerations/1547 executions based on updated data through June 29, 2022).[iii]
- Tennessee has had three death row exonerations. Another wrongfully convicted man who spent 20 years on death row and a total of 28 years in prison took an Alford plea, allowing him to maintain his innocence while pleading to a lesser offense that he also didn’t commit in order to obtain his immediate release. Pervis Payne, who was removed from death row because of his intellectual disability, is still fighting to prove his innocence.
- Tennessee wrongly denied DNA testing to Sedley Alley before executing him and continues to oppose available DNA testing that could determine whether it wrongfully executed an innocent man
- The death penalty does not put the same value on all human life. Executions are much more common in cases with white victims: 78% of executions in the U.S. in the past 50 years involved white victims; 15% involved Black victims; 7.6% involved Latinx victims, even though white victims only make up around half of all homicide victims.[iv]
- The death penalty disproportionately impacts those who are most vulnerable, including juveniles, as well as people with severe mental illness, brain injury, and severe untreated trauma.
- Tennessee’s death penalty does not value the sanctity of human life and denies the power of redemption and atonement by those who have caused harm.
Tennessee’s death penalty is costly and ineffective.
- Fifty years of experience has taught us that no matter how hard the government tries to get this system right, it fails at every turn, from convicting innocent people to botching execution procedures, all while spending millions of taxpayer dollars in the process.
- The death penalty is geographically arbitrary, meaning the same crimes may receive very different penalties depending on the county in which the crime occurs. Just 1.1% of all counties in the U.S accounted for half of everyone on death row while 2% of U.S. counties accounted for half of all executions as of January 1, 2021.[v]
- In Tennessee, just four counties—Shelby, Davidson, Knox, and Hamilton—account for 70% of Tennessee’s death row. Shelby County alone accounts for 49%. While Davidson County, the second largest county after Shelby, only accounts for 8.5%. Tennessee’s rural counties are paying to maintain the death penalty used mostly by urban areas.
- The death penalty asks too much of Tennessee Department of Correction officers, ranked among the lowest paid in the nation, to carry out executions without medical or pharmaceutical expertise. These individuals must live with the mental and physical trauma of taking a human life and with the consequences when something goes terribly wrong.
- In 2020, only 50% of murders in the U.S. were solved. From 2017-2020, the Memphis Police Department had a clearance rate of 32%; Nashville, 43%; Knoxville, 37%; and Chattanooga, 39%.[vi] This reality leaves surviving families of murder victims fearful and without the finality that they need. Taxpayer dollars would be better spent solving more of these cases than pursuing the death penalty for those already incarcerated.
Tennessee needs real solutions: If Tennesseans truly want to embrace a culture of life and to find effective responses to crime, we should be focused on healing and crime prevention, investing in trauma informed solutions that focus on accountability, mental health, and early intervention to prevent crime. We should be solving more violent crime, and we should get victims of violence and surviving families of murder victims the resources that they need to heal so that their healing isn’t reliant on what happens to the people who’ve caused them harm.
[i] Death Penalty Information Center’s Death Penalty Census, June 2022 https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/death-penalty-census/key-findings
[ii] Death Penalty Information Center’s Death Penalty Census, June 2022 https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/death-penalty-census/key-findings
[iii] Death Penalty Information Center’s Death Penalty Census, June 2022 https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/death-penalty-census/key-findings
[iv] BJS: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Homicide Trends in the U.S., 2005 https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/htius.pdf
[v] Death Penalty Information Center’s Death Penalty Census, June 2022 https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/death-penalty-census/key-findings
[vi] The Marshall Project, As Murders Spiked, Police Solved About Half in 2020, January 2022 https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/01/12/as-murders-spiked-police-solved-about-half-in-2020
MYTH
The penalty ensures justice for surviving family members of murder victims.
FACT
Tennessee death penalty makes false promises, harming victims.
- Tennessee’s death penalty makes false promises to victims’ families as fewer than 1 in 20 death sentences over the last 50 years have resulted in an execution.[i]
- A death sentence is 12 times more likely to be reversed as a result of a court decision than it is to result in an execution.[ii]
- For every four people executed in Tennessee, approximately one person has been exonerated and released from death row.
- Surviving families of murder victims spend decades in a legal process that keeps them trapped in their trauma. Alternative sentences would provide legal finality much sooner, sometimes as soon as the trial is over.
[i] Death Penalty Information Center’s Death Penalty Census, June 2022 https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/death-penalty-census/key-findings
[ii] Death Penalty Information Center’s Death Penalty Census, June 2022 https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/death-penalty-census/key-findings
[i] Death Penalty Information Center’s Death Penalty Census, June 2022 https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/death-penalty-census/key-findings
[ii] Death Penalty Information Center’s Death Penalty Census, June 2022 https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/death-penalty-census/key-findings
Solving Cold Cases
In 2020, only 50% of murders in the U.S. were solved. From 2017-2020, the Memphis Police Department had a clearance rate of 32%; Nashville, 43%; Knoxville, 37%; and Chattanooga, 39%.[i] This reality leaves surviving families of murder victims fearful and without the finality that they need. Taxpayer dollars would be better spent solving more of these cases than pursuing the death penalty for those already incarcerated.
[i] The Marshall Project, As Murders Spiked, Police Solved About Half in 2020, January 2022 https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/01/12/as-murders-spiked-police-solved-about-half-in-2020
Quotes
“I know firsthand the trauma of losing a loved one to homicide, and I understand the impulse to seek the ultimate punishment. But I also recognize that public policy should not be based on our emotions at the worst moment of our lives.” – Davis Turner, whose brother, Thomas, was murdered in Nashville in 2009
“For surviving family members dealing with the horror and personal trauma of losing a loved one to murder, the death penalty only adds to their suffering by freezing them at a moment in time for years, forcing them to relive over and over the tragic circumstances of the murder with every new twist and turn in the legal process. This process never allows them the opportunity to painfully struggle to go on with their lives as my family was able to do.” – Charles Strobel, whose mother, Mary Catherine, was kidnapped and murdered in Nashville in 1986
“While we spend millions on the death penalty, there are murderers who remain on the streets. Our resources would be better spent solving cases like my mother’s and preventing murder in the first place.” – James Staub’s mother, Patricia, was murdered in 1985, when James was 12 years old. The killer was never found.
[1] http://www.endthebacklog.org/tennessee
MYTH
Executions are cheaper than life imprisonment.
FACT
In a 2004 Tennessee Comptroller’s Report, the Office of Research was unable to determine the comprehensive cost of Tennessee’s death penalty system because the data was not centralized. However, the report still concludes that overall, first-degree murder cases in which a notice to seek death is filed cost more than life without the possibility of parole cases.
- This report also found that death penalty trials cost an average of 48% more than the average cost of trials in which a life sentence is pursued.
- A New Jersey study found, between 1983 and 2005, taxpayers paid $253 million MORE for the death penalty system than for a system with life without parole as its maximum sentence. New Jersey had a death row of 10 inmates and executed no one in that time period. Tennessee has a death row of 63 and has executed six in the modern era.
- States like Maryland, Kansas, and North Carolina also found that the death penalty costs taxpayers millions more to maintain than life without parole.
MYTH
Public opinion strongly supports the death penalty.
FACT
“Gallup’s 2022 Crime Survey, administered between October 3–20, 2022 against the backdrop of the Parkland school shooting trial, reported support for capital punishment held steady at 55%, one percentage point above the 50-year low of 54% in 2021. According to Gallup, support for capital punishment has remained between 54-56% for each of the past six years. 42% of respondents told Gallup they oppose the death penalty, one percentage point below 2021’s 50-year high.” (DPIC 2022 Year End Report)
“Public support for capital punishment varies considerably depending upon the question that is asked. Gallup periodically asks respondents to choose whether the death penalty or life without possibility of parole “is the better penalty for murder.” The last time Gallup asked that question, in 2019, 60% percent of Americans chose the life-sentencing option, while only 36% favored the death penalty.” (DPIC 2022 Year End Report)
A 2022 Vanderbilt Poll found that when given the options of the sentences of life in prison without parole or the death penalty, 53% of Tennesseans choose life without parole while 37% choose the death penalty. https://www.wate.com/news/vanderbilt-poll-asks-voters-about-criminal-justice-reform-abortion-and-more/
MYTH
The death penalty system doesn’t make mistakes.
FACT
Since 1972, 190 death row inmates nationwide have been exonerated and freed from death row when evidence of their innocence emerged, including three in Tennessee.
- In 2007, Michael McCormick was found not guilty in a new trial after spending nearly 20 years fighting his conviction and death sentence.
- Paul House served on Tennessee’s death row for nearly 23 years, though evidence (including DNA), indicated his wrongful conviction. All charges against him were dropped in 2009.
- Gussie Vann spent 17 years on Tennessee’s death row before all charges against him were dismissed after the court after held that he was entitled to a new trial because his defense attorneys failed to hire forensic experts to challenge the “inaccurate, exaggerated, and speculative medical testimony” offered by the state to make the case against him.
A recent report, The Innocence Epidemic, from The Death Penalty Information’s Center highlights more about how wrongful convictions occur. The data indicate that for every 8.2 executions in the U.S. since 1972, one person has been exonerated.
The report also concludes that:
Moreover, the data show that most wrongful capital convictions and death sentences are not merely accidental or the result of unintentional errors. Instead, they are overwhelmingly the product of police or prosecutorial misconduct or the presentation of knowingly false testimony. More likely than not, they involve a combination of the two.
Read the report at https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/dpic-reports/dpic-special-report-the-innocence-epidemic
MYTH
The death penalty deters crime.
FACT
Researchers continue to find flaws in studies claiming deterrence effect. A report released on April 18, 2012, by the National Research Council of the National Academies based on a review of more than three decades of research concluded that studies claiming a deterrent effect on murder rates from the death penalty are fundamentally flawed. The report stated:
“The committee concludes that research to date on the effect of capital punishment on homicide is not informative about whether capital punishment decreases, increases, or has no effect on homicide rates. Therefore, the committee recommends that these studies not be used to inform deliberations requiring judgments about the effect of the death penalty on homicide. Consequently, claims that research demonstrates that capital punishment decreases or increases the homicide rate by a speciFied amount or has no effect on the homicide rate should not influence policy judgments about capital punishment.”(D. Nagin and J. Pepper, “Deterrence and the Death Penalty,” Committee on Law and Justice at the National Research Council, April 2012)
According to a 2009 survey of the former and present presidents of the nation’s top academic criminological societies appearing in Northwestern University’s School of Law Journal, 88% of these experts rejected the notion that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to homicide.
A 2008 poll by Death Penalty Information Center surveyed 500 U.S. police chiefs and found that when asked to name one area as “most important for reducing violent crime,” greater use of the death penalty ranked last among police chiefs with only 1% listing it as the best way to reduce violence.