Death Penalty In Tennessee
History
Capital punishment has existed intermittently in Tennessee since becoming a state in 1796. For centuries, hanging was the method of execution until it was replaced by the electric chair in 1913. In 1916, following a two-year hiatus from the death penalty (1913-1915), executions resumed with electrocution as the method of execution. Executions peaked in the 1930s, when 47 death sentences were carried out.
From 1916 to 1960, all executions took place at the Tennessee State Penitentiary located in Nashville. Records were kept of those sentenced to death by the warden in an "official ledger" that accounted the name, crime, and the time of death of the 125 people executed in Tennessee.
From 1972 until 1978, there were no offenders on death row in Tennessee, due to the ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court declaring capital punishment unconstitutional. Offenders on death row had their sentences commuted mostly to life. The death penalty became legal again in 1978.
Electrocution remained the only method of execution until 1998, when the state legislature added the choice of lethal injection to offenders who committed their crime(s) before January 1, 1999. In March 2000, legislation specified lethal injection as the primary method of execution, though death row offenders who committed their crime(s) prior to January 1, 1999, may still request electrocution.
On April 19, 2000, Robert Glen Coe became the first person in Tennessee to be executed by lethal injection for the murder, rape, and aggravated kidnapping of an 8-year-old girl. This was Tennessee's first execution in nearly 40 years and took place at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.
On February 1, 2007, Governor Bredesen issued an executive order directing TDOC to review the manner in which the death penalty was administered, and all executions were put on hold. On April 30, the department delivered revised death penalty protocols to Governor Bredesen, and the moratorium was lifted on May 2, 2007. A few months later, on September 12, 2007, Daryl Keith Holton became the first person to be executed by electrocution since 1960.
TDOC issued a revised protocol for court-ordered executions in 2013, announcing the use of a single-drug protocol to replace the previously used three drug method. The protocol permits the sole use of the sedative, pentobarbital, which had been upheld in court challenges and used in other states. However, in 2018, the three-drug protocol was officially adopted by TDOC as an alternative to the single-drug protocol.
In 2018 and 2019, electrocution was chosen by five offenders as their choice for method of execution.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Bill Lee issued a reprieve from executions in 2020. The first scheduled execution following the COVID pandemic was for death row inmate Oscar Frank Smith in May 2022. Smith was granted a temporary reprieve after Governor Lee paused all executions in Tennessee.
Following an independent review released in January the following year, Governor Lee directed the department to revise the state’s lethal injection protocol, in consultation with the Governor’s Office and the Tennessee Attorney General’s office.
Life on Death Row
Today, offenders sentenced to death are housed in a separate unit at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, except for the one female offender sentenced to death, who is housed at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville.
The housing and supervision of death row offenders is strictly guided by policies and procedures developed by the department. All death row offenders have a maximum-security designation. To determine their level of supervision within the unit, offenders are classified into behavioral levels of A, B, and C.
When an offender first enters death row, he or she is placed on Level C, the highest level of supervision. After 18 months, the offender is reclassified, and based on behavior, can be moved to Level B. A certain amount of time must be spent on Level B before an offender is eligible to be moved to Level A. Reaching Level A or B means more privileges for the offender, such as more phone and visitation privileges. Only Level A offenders can apply for the few jobs available on death row, including cleaning, food preparation, and data entry. An offender can move backwards on the level scale due to misconduct.
The offenders on death row are awakened around 5:30 a.m. They are provided three meals per day Monday through Friday, and two meals per day on weekends and holidays. Breakfast is at 7 a.m., lunch at 11 a.m., and dinner at 5 p.m. Offenders are secured in their cells by 9 p.m. daily.
Female death row offenders are subject to similar policies as their male counterparts, however they are not housed in a separate housing unit because of the small number of females sentenced to death.