Both the U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 and the Tennessee Supreme Court in 2001 have ruled that a person with an intellectual disability should not be executed. Still, Tennessee does not have a process to stop the execution of a person with a disability who was sentenced to death before 2001.

House Bill 1 (HB0001), the first bill filed in the 2021 Tennessee legislative session, is intended to help people like death row inmate Pervis Payne, who was convicted of the 1987 deaths of two persons and sentenced to death.

Payne has maintained his innocence, and his attorneys have said that he has an intellectual disability. Still, they have been unable to litigate the claim in Tennessee because there is no process to bring a claim.

The Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators filed the bill that would allow a defendant already sentenced to death and whose conviction is final to petition the court regarding a claim of intellectual disability. The trial could determine whether that person is ineligible for the death penalty due to that intellectual disability. 

HB 1 would provide one more chance at life for people who have been sentenced to death and lost all their appeals. It will allow the courts to overturn someone’s death sentence if he or she has an intellectual disability.