For 33 years, the Payne family’s Thanksgiving celebrations have been tinged with an unshakeable sadness — the absence of their son, brother, and uncle, Pervis Payne. This year, the family said they have a lot to be thankful for.
On Nov. 23, just two days ahead of the holiday, Payne was formally removed from death row.
“Thanksgiving for me will never be the same and I am sure I am speaking for my father as well,” said Rolanda Holman, Payne’s sister. “This will always be a monumental week from now on because that’s how I feel today. Although he is not able to come to the table and have Thanksgiving with us, it gives me such a drive and reignites my fire even more to work toward that day when he will be able to sit at the table with our family and have a good slice of turkey … it’s amazing, so amazing.”
Payne had been facing execution in Tennessee, despite living with an intellectual disability that makes it unconstitutional to execute him.
Last week, Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich conceded that Payne is a person with an intellectual disability, and announced it would stop pursuing the death penalty in his case.
“When I was 13 I sat in the court and I heard the judge sentence him to death by way of the electric chair,” recalled Holman. “Today, I sat in the same court and I got an opportunity at 47 years old to hear the judge say that Pervis Payne’s death sentence has been cancelled. If that’s not celebratory I don’t know what is, so I am so grateful today.”
The district attorney’s office asked the court last week to vacate his death sentence and re-sentence him to two consecutive life sentences. If its request for consecutive sentences is approved, Payne will effectively be serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
“This would be grossly unfair to Payne, who is innocent and should never have been subjected to the death penalty,” Kelley Henry of the Federal Public Defenders, Payne’s attorney, said in a statement.
Judge Paula Skahan signed the motion to set aside Payne’s death sentence on Tuesday, and said she will decide whether the sentences should run consecutively or concurrently at a later date.
Even if the judge determines that Payne should serve concurrent sentences, there is no guarantee that the parole board would ever grant Payne parole. And, because he was previously sentenced to death, Payne will not receive sentencing credit for his decades of model behavior while incarcerated.
“[Pervis] had never been arrested before the day of this tragic event and has never received a single disciplinary write-up in prison. He has a loving family and strong community support who would welcome him home,” said Henry.
Case Background
Payne was 20 when he was convicted of murdering Christopher and her child in Shelby County, Tennessee.
According to Payne, he was waiting for his girlfriend at her apartment in Millington, Tennessee, when he saw a man with blood on him sprinting out of the building. The man ran past him, dropping change and papers as he ran, a few of which Payne picked up before he entered the building and made his way to his girlfriend’s apartment. There, he noticed that the door to the apartment across the hall was open and heard a noise.
Payne says he entered the neighbor’s apartment where he encountered Charisse Christopher, who had been stabbed 41 times and still had a knife in her throat. He says he removed the knife, then checked on her two young children before running to get help. Shortly after leaving the apartment, he saw police officers arriving, panicked, and thought they would think he had committed the crime. Payne was arrested later that day.
In January 2021, a crime lab in California found unknown male DNA on the knife Payne is accused of using to murder Christopher and her daughter, and stab her 4-year-old son. The knife from the 1987 crime scene had never been tested before Shelby County Criminal Court ordered the testing in September 2020. However, a criminal court judge said the presence of another person’s DNA on the weapon is not enough to prove Payne’s innocence.
Payne has an IQ of 72 and other evidence of intellectual disability. One of the main reasons the U.S. Supreme Court barred the execution of people with intellectual disability in Atkins v. Virginia (2002) is that they present a special risk of wrongful conviction. According to the Innocence Project, Payne was convicted, in part, because he was unable to assist his attorneys in making his defense and he made a poor witness on his own behalf.
Photo: Pervis Payne hugs his attorney, federal defender Kelley Henry, after a judge formally removed him from death row. Credit: Laramie Renae/Innocence Project