DPIC reports that The Innocence Project and federal defenders have filed a motion in a Shelby County, Tennessee trial court seeking DNA testing of physical evidence hidden by prosecutors for 30 years that they believe will exonerate death-row prisoner Pervis Payne (pictured). Payne, who is scheduled to be executed on December 3, 2020, has steadfastly denied committing the crime. The lawyers argue that his conviction and death sentence are the combined product of racial bias by a prosecutor’s office with an extensive history of misconduct and Payne’s intellectual disability.

Payne was sentenced to death in 1988 for the stabbing deaths of Charisse Christopher and her two-year-old daughter and the attempted murder of her three-year-old son. Payne’s girlfriend lived on the same floor as the victims.

On June 27, 1987, Payne 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 entered the neighbor’s apartment where he encountered Charisse Christopher, who had been stabbed 41 times and still had a knife in her throat.

The panicked 20-year-old tried to help. He noticed that Christopher’s hand was grasping at the knife, and removed it. Then he checked on her two young children before running to get help. Shortly after leaving the apartment, he saw police officers arriving. And for the second time that day, Payne was overcome with panic.

“Some other feeling just went all over me and just panicked, just like, oh, look at this,” Payne said in his testimony. “I’m coming out of here with blood on me and everything. It going to look like I done this crime.”

Payne was arrested later that day — the first misstep in the path that led to his wrongful conviction for the murder of Christopher and her 2-year-old daughter.

Police focused their entire investigation on Payne even though he had no criminal record and no clear motive for the killings. They failed to investigate other suspects with a stronger motive such as Christopher’s abusive ex-husband or a local drug dealer who frequented Christopher’s apartment. 

At trial, prosecutors played on racial stereotypes, characterizing Payne as a sexually predatory black man, high on drugs, who attacked a white woman. It wasn’t just his being in the wrong place at the wrong time that led to Payne’s wrongful conviction. The prosecution’s case against him exploited his intellectual disability, hid evidence, and relied on racist stereotypes of Black men to paint a portrait of Payne as a dangerous and hypersexualized drug user.

Payne didn’t know Christopher and had no reason to attack her. And no evidence suggested that he sexually assaulted her. Yet police and prosecutors argued that Payne had made an advance on Christopher while using drugs and alcohol and that, when she rejected him, he had stabbed her to death. 

However, there was no evidence that Payne was using drugs. Payne was never given a drug test, though his mother begged police officers to perform one, and no evidence of drug use was reported during the initial investigation. Payne had no history of drug use or violence, and did not have a criminal record — or any contact with the legal system before the day he found Christopher in her apartment. But the prosecution argued that Payne had been searching for sex after using drugs and looking at a Playboy magazine.

They argued, without evidence, that Payne had sexually assaulted Christopher, presenting a bloody tampon that they asserted he had pulled from her body. However, the tampon did not appear in any crime scene photos or video. Police also claimed to have found evidence that linked Payne — who had no history of drug use — to drugs but refused a request by Payne’s mother, shortly after his arrest, that he be permitted to take a drug test. 

In December 2019, when a court order provided defense counsel access to evidence held by the county clerk’s office, the defense for the first time discovered the existence of a blood-stained comforter, bedsheets, and pillow. Payne’s lawyers have asked for expedited DNA testing of this evidence. Assistant federal defender Kelley Henry, one of the lawyers who represents Payne said, “[t]he prosecutors illegally hid this evidence for three decades. That's just wrong. … But there's still time to save this man’s life.”

Payne lives with an intellectual disability and struggled in school. Though he tried, he continued to have difficulty with reading, spelling, and math, even after being placed in resource classes. Despite his best efforts, Payne was unable to graduate. Growing up he also had trouble with everyday tasks like cooking and doing laundry — as a child, he needed help feeding himself until he was 5.

Doctors have since confirmed through testing that Payne has an intellectual disability. Under the 8th Amendment, it would be unconstitutional to execute him. [MORE]