A majority of the Tennessee Supreme Court has upheld the first degree murder convictions and death sentences of James Henderson Dellinger and Gary Wayne Sutton for the 1992 Blount County murder of Tommy Mayford Griffin.
"We have reviewed all of the issues raised by the defendants and conclude that they do not warrant relief," Justice Janice Holder wrote for the majority in the opinion filed Tuesday.
Jurors convicted Dellinger and Sutton for shooting Griffin in the back of the neck with a 12-gauge shotgun following an argument. They also had been convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Griffin's sister, Connie Branam, whose body was discovered in her burned vehicle.
Writing a separate concurring/dissenting opinion, Justice Adolpho A. Birch, Jr., agreed with the majority's opinion affirming the convictions, but would reverse the death sentences. Birch said he has "grave concerns" about the proportionality analysis used by the majority.
"I have not detected any meaningful effort to address and rectify these concerns," Birch wrote, citing numerous other cases in which he had dissented on similar grounds. "I do not believe that the court is properly fulfilling its statutory obligation to determine whether ‘the sentence of death is excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases.'"
Writing for the majority, Holder said the court had conducted "an exhaustive review" of the records in similar cases before concluding that the sentences of death for Dellinger and Sutton are not disproportionate.
Birch also was "deeply concerned" that the trial judge declined to answer a question from the jury about the amount of prison time the defendants would serve if they received life sentences.
"There seems to be, in my view, a substantial probability that the jury returned a death sentence not because it thought death to be an appropriate punishment for the defendants' crimes, but because it wrongly believed that a life sentence would allow the defendants to go free after a short amount of time," he said.
Birch cited studies indicating that capital jurors often underestimate the time a defendant actually will serve if sentenced to life, and said the studies suggest that jurors who hold such misconceptions are more likely to impose death sentences. He opined that the Tennessee Constitution should be interpreted as mandating "that the jury . . . should have been informed of the minimum time the defendants would have to serve before being eligible for parole and the probability, based on comparison to other first degree murder cases, that the defendants would be released upon initial eligibility for parole."
The majority concluded that the trial judge complied with prior federal and state rulings when he refused to answer the question concerning the length of a life sentence. Holder cited and reaffirmed a prior state court decision which held that "instructing the jury on such specific sentencing information could result in sentences of death based on sheer speculation and on factors not enumerated by statute and not sanctioned under the United States Constitution or the Tennessee Constitution."
"We continue to adhere to this proposition and agree with the trial court's refusal to answer the jury's question in this case," she wrote.
In their direct appeal, Dellinger and Sutton also argued that the trial court should have instructed the jury at sentencing that they are human beings. They said this was a proper mitigation instruction because a prison guard testified they are "deserving of respect as human beings."
In rejecting the claim, Holder wrote, "The fact that Dellinger and Sutton are human beings is not relevant mitigating evidence. All criminal defendants are human beings. That fact, therefore, does not relate to the uniqueness of the individual defendant. Moreover, the species of the defendants does not bear on their character or prior record, or the circumstances of the offense. Nor did the prosecutor in any way question the fact that the defendants are human beings."
Other issues addressed in the opinion and found to be without merit were whether the indictments violated the United States Constitution; whether the trial court erred in refusing to grant the defendants separate trials or separate juries; whether the trial court erred in dismissing a jury selection expert; whether the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury that the identity of the defendants in prior convictions must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt; whether evidence seized from Dellinger's residence under a search warrant should have been suppressed; and whether the state's evidence was sufficient to establish the "prior violent felony" aggravating circumstance in seeking the death penalty.