Below is a list of capital cases that have, at one point, neared their execution date. This is not a complete list of defendants on death row. For that list, please visit the Department of Correction's Death Row page. We have compiled the recent filings in each of these cases, however, the files here are not to be construed as the complete record of the proceedings in these cases.
Pending Cases
Byron Lewis Black
Tony V. Carruthers
Henry Eugene Hodges
Donald Ray Middlebrooks
Farris Genner Morris
Harold Wayne Nichols
Christa Gail Pike
Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman
Oscar Franklin Smith
Gary Wayne Sutton
Executions that have been carried out
Cecil C. Johnson, Jr.
Steve Henley
Daryl Holton
Philip Workman
Sedley Alley
Robert Glen Coe
Billy Ray Irick
Edmund Zagorski
Donnie Johnson
Stephen Michael West
David Earl Miller
Lee Hall a/k/a Leroy Hall, Jr.
Sentence Commuted
Edward Harbison
Gaile Owens
Mika'eel Abdullah Abdus-Samad aka Michael Joe Boyd
Pervis T. Payne
Exonerated
Paul House
Died of Natural Causes
Stephen Lynn Hugueley
Olen E. Hutchison
Paul Dennis Reid
Donald Wayne Strouth
Gregory Thompson
Ricky Thompson
Charles Walton Wright
The Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) provides information about the history of executions in Tennessee, a list of all Tennessee executions and a list of all prisoners on death row.
For more information, please contact TDOC https://www.tn.gov/correction/contact/media-requests.html
The Administrative Office of the Courts has developed a document outlining the history of capital punishment in Tennessee and providing an overview of the legal process. This document also includes a helpful graphic that illustrates the three-tiered appeals process in death penalty cases.
The Tennessee Comptroller's office conducted a study in 2004 to examine the costs of first degree murder cases. Their report compares the cost of cases that received the sentences of life in prison, life in prison without the possibility of parole and the death penalty.