Appeal Sought in Payne Sentencing

     Jan. 31, 2022 – Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich has asked the State Attorney General’s Office to appeal a judge’s ruling Monday that convicted double-murderer Pervis Payne’s vacated death sentences issued in 1988 should be served as concurrent life sentences.   

   “We respectfully disagree with Judge Skahan’s interpretation of the new statute that removed the one-year statute of limitations on claims of intellectual disability. The statute does not authorize changing the original trial judge’s ruling that multiple sentences in the case should be consecutive.”

    Last year a state expert examined Payne and available records, and could not say Payne’s intellectual functioning is outside the range for intellectual disability. As a result, the state withdrew its request for a hearing, which meant Payne’s two death sentences were changed to two sentences of life in prison for the murders of Charisse and Lacie Christopher.

    Payne also was convicted of assault to murder 3-year-old Nicholas Christopher, for which he was sentenced to 30 years.

    The Criminal Court judge in 1988 ordered that all three sentences be served consecutively, despite two death sentences, because “we have to anticipate what might occur in the future.”