Payne v. Tennessee 1991

AuthorDaniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw
Pages291-295

Page 291

Petitioner: Pervis Tyrone Payne

Respondent: State of Tennessee

Petitioner's Claim: That allowing the jury to consider evidence of how his crimes affected his victims violated the Eighth Amendment.

Chief Lawyer for Petitioner: J. Brooke Lathram

Chief Lawyer for Respondent: Charles W. Burson, Attorney General of Tennessee

Justices for the Court: Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, William H. Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter, Byron R. White

Justices Dissenting: Harry A. Blackmun, Thurgood Marshall, John Paul Stevens

Date of Decision: June 27, 1991

Decision: The Supreme Court affirmed Payne's death sentence.

Significance: In Payne, the Supreme Court said prosecutors in death penalty cases may use victim impact evidence—evidence about how the crime affected the victim and her family. This decision overruled earlier decisions that the Supreme Court had made concerning victim impact evidence.

Page 292

On Saturday, June 27, 1987, Pervis Tyrone Payne visited the apartment of his girlfriend, Bobbie Thomas, in Millington, Tennessee. Thomas was on her way home from her mother's house in Arkansas. While Payne waited for Thomas to arrive, he spent the morning and early afternoon injecting cocaine into his body and drinking beer. Then he and a friend drove around town while reading a pornographic magazine. Payne returned to Thomas's apartment complex around 3 p.m.

Across the hall from Thomas, twenty-eight year old Charisse Christopher lived with her three year old son Nicholas and two year old daughter Lacie. Payne entered Christopher's apartment and made sexual advances toward her. When Christopher resisted and screamed "get out," Payne grabbed a butcher's knife and stabbed her forty-one times, causing eighty-four separate wounds. Christopher died from massive bleeding. Payne also stabbed Christopher's children, Nicholas and Lacie. Nicholas survived by a miracle, but Lacie died with her mother.

When she heard the blood-curdling scream from Christopher's apartment, a neighbor called the police. The police officer who arrived saw Payne leaving the building soaked in blood and carrying an overnight bag. When the officer asked Payne what was happening, Payne hit him over the head with the bag and escaped. Later that day, the police found Payne hiding in the attic at a former girlfriend's home.

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