Despite the availability of multiple pieces of untested evidence that could help prove Pervis Payne’s innocence, on July 30, Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich announced that she opposes DNA testing in his case and filed papers asking the court to deny him testing. Pervis is scheduled for execution later this year.
That’s why Pervis’ legal team filed a reply brief on Friday in support of their petition for post-conviction DNA analysis — requesting that the Shelby County Criminal Court order DNA testing of more than a dozen pieces of crime scene evidence that have never been subjected to DNA analysis. The brief also asks the court to allow comparison of the DNA and fingerprint evidence with FBI databases.
Pervis’ team is also asking for a hearing before a judge so that a DNA expert or expert witnesses can demonstrate how DNA could establish his innocence.
Pervis, who has an intellectual disability, has maintained his innocence for more than 30 years. He had no motivation for committing such a crime.
The State relied on racist stereotypes that painted Pervis, a Black man, as a hypersexual, drug-using super-predator in order to help convict him — and now the state of Tennessee is set to execute him on December 3, 2020.
We’re doing everything we can to make sure that Pervis gets access to DNA that could prove his innocence and stop his unconstitutional execution — and we need help in shining a light on this fight.
The Innocence Project exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. www.innocenceproject.org
