Pervis Payne is my big brother, but I’ve always called him Bubba. He’s been incarcerated for more than 30 years for a crime that I know he did not commit.
When I heard the Innocence Project was going to be working on his case I was so grateful — but I never imagined then that more than 700,000 people would sign on to a petition in support of my brother. The support of each and every one of those people has meant everything to my brother and our family, but Bubba’s life is still at risk. The Tennessee Supreme Court could assign him a new execution date at any time.
Pervis, who has an intellectual disability, has always been a kind and loving person, but prosecutors used racist stereotypes to convince a jury that he was hypersexual and violent. For 33 years, he’s been on death row even though it's unconstitutional to impose the death penalty on individuals with intellectual disabilities.
It shouldn’t be like this. My brother deserves the justice he was denied more than 30 years ago.
The Innocence Project exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. www.innocenceproject.org
