Death row inmate challenges new Tennessee post-conviction law

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy A Tennessee death row inmate is challenging the newly expanded authority of the appointed state attorney general to argue certain capital cases, a power that lawmakers shifted away from locally elected prosecutors under a new law after some expressed reluctance to pursue the death penalty. Richard Dieter, the Death Penalty Information Center’s executive director, said tension exists in capital cases where the district attorney has said the death penalty is flawed and that they will almost never seek it. Republican Sen. Brent Taylor, the sponsor of the bill passed in April, argued that under the previous law, district attorneys could be unfamiliar with the sometimes decades-old death penalty cases under appeal. “The Attorney General’s intervention bill is fiscally irresponsible, unconstitutional, and an attack on the voters of Shelby and Davidson County, which will result in an unnecessary delay in the adjudication of death penalty cases by an entity that is not accountable to the voters,” said Kelley Henry, Payne’s lawyer.