Payne v. Tennessee 1991

views updated

Payne v. Tennessee 1991

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.

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.

The Trial

The state of Tennessee charged Payne with two counts of murder and one count of assault with intent to commit murder. At trial, Payne said he had not hurt anyone. The evidence against him, however, was strong. At the murder scene, his baseball cap was strapped around Lacie's arm. There were cans of beer with Payne's fingerprints on them. The jury convicted Payne on all counts.

At the sentencing phase of the trial, the jury had to decide whether to give Payne the death penalty or life in prison. Payne presented evidence from his parents, his girlfriend, and a doctor. Payne's parents said he was a good person who did not use drugs or alcohol and who never had been arrested. Thomas called Payne a loving person who would not commit murder. The doctor testified that Payne was mentally handicapped.

The state presented victim impact evidence (evidence about how the crime affected one of the victims). Nicholas's grandmother testified that Nicholas cried for his mother and did not understand why she never came home. Nicholas also asked his grandmother if she missed his sister, Lacie, and said he was worried about Lacie.

During closing arguments to the jury, lawyers are allowed to explain the verdict if they want. The prosecutor for Tennessee said the jury should remember all the people who would miss Charisse Christopher and Lacie, especially Nicholas. He also said the jury should give Payne the death penalty so that when Nicholas grew up, he would know that his mother and sister's murderer received justice. The jury gave Payne the death penalty for both murders and a thirty year prison sentence for assaulting Nicholas.

Cruel and Unusual Evidence

The Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prevents the government from using cruel and unusual punishment. In Booth v. Maryland (1987) and South Carolina v. Gathers (1989), the Supreme Court said it is cruel and unusual to allow juries to hear victim impact evidence during a death penalty hearing and closing arguments. The Supreme Court said such evidence makes the jury focus on the victim instead of the defendant. Under the Eighth Amendment, the jury is supposed to decide whether a defendant deserves the death penalty by focusing on the defendant's crime, character, and background.

Payne appealed his death sentences. He said that under Booth and Gathers, it was illegal for the state of Tennessee to use evidence about how the crime affected Nicholas. The Supreme Court of Tennessee rejected Payne's argument. It said that when a man picks up a butcher's knife and stabs a mother and her two children, the effect on the child that survives helps the jury determine the criminal's punishment. Payne took his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Victims' Rights

With a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court affirmed the death penalty for Payne. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said the Court decided to overrule its decisions in Booth and Gathers. When the Supreme Court overrules earlier decisions, it announces a new rule of law.

Rehnquist said that one of the goals of criminal justice in the United States is to make the punishment fit the crime. A jury cannot do this if it does not know how the crime affected the victim and her family. In a murder case, victim impact evidence helps the jury determine how a family and community suffer and what they lose from the death of a loved one. As long as the evidence is not so unrelated to the crime as to become unfair, the Eighth Amendment allows victim impact evidence.

VICTIMS' RIGHTS

T he criminal justice system in the United States usually focuses on the criminal by asking who broke the law and what should be her punishment. Victims often are ignored in this process. That began to change, however, during the victims' rights movement.

Today, prosecutors' offices have entire units that keep victims informed about the progress of criminal cases. The federal government and most states allow juries to determine the punishment for a crime by using victim impact evidence—information about how the crime affected the victim and her family. Victims often present this evidence as a statement to the jury during the sentencing phase of a trial.

Some criminal justice systems use a practice called a victim-offender conference (VOC). At a VOC, the criminal and victim meet in a safe place to explore how the crime affected their lives. The criminal has a chance to apologize to the victim. The victim can ask questions and even forgive the criminal. Like other parts of the victims' rights movement, the VOC is supposed to help victims get on with their lives after suffering through crime.

In the long run

As of 1999, forty-nine states and the federal government had laws allowing juries to hear victim impact evidence. After signing a victims' rights law in 1997, President William J. Clinton said, "when someone is a victim, he or she should be at the center of the criminal justice process, not on the outside looking in."