A Tennessee death row inmate sentenced to die more than four decades ago stood before a Knoxville judge this week, asking him to undo that sentence and replace it with life in prison. Terry King, now 64, was convicted of robbing, kidnapping and killing Diana Smith, and has spent years arguing that the trial that sent him to death row in 1985 was built on flawed evidence and faulty legal reasoning.
King appeared in court Thursday, according to WBIR, more than 40 years after his original conviction. His attorneys told the court that appellate courts have identified six errors in his original trial, including what they described as the improper use of evidence that could have influenced the jury's sentencing decision. King and co-defendant Randall Joe Sexton were indicted in 1983 for the first-degree murder of Diana K. Smith in Knox County, according to court records published by caselaw.findlaw.com.
Jurors Heard Testimony Later Ruled Irrelevant
Among the contested evidence, a woman testified that King had assaulted her, and Randall Sexton testified about the same alleged incident, per the WBIR report. The court later ruled that testimony irrelevant to the case. Jurors also heard about King's juvenile criminal record, details his attorneys now say should never have factored into a decision over his life.
King's attorneys argued in court that gun use led to an additional conviction that they say should have instead been treated as an enhancement to the kidnapping or murder charges rather than standing as a separate basis for the death sentence. The jury had cited the crime's heinous and cruel nature as one reason for imposing the death penalty, but the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later found that justification too vague, the station's report notes. The same appeals court also found improper the jury's reasoning that the murder qualified for the death penalty because it was committed during a felony.
Defense Says Reliability of the Sentence Is in Question
Attorney Cullen Wojcik said King needs resentencing because the jury considered invalid evidence in reaching its decision, according to the same account. King's legal team argued that the combined effect of the errors calls the reliability of his sentence into question, and they hope the judge will reopen the case so they can argue for a life sentence instead.
Attorney Joshua Hedrick pointed to the trial record, saying jurors specifically asked to review the judgments now being challenged. Hedrick also said the state cannot know exactly what jurors were thinking when they weighed that evidence. The defense's broader argument tracks a question Tennessee courts have grappled with before: in State v. Michael Joe Boyd, the state Supreme Court weighed whether a jury's reliance on an invalid aggravating circumstance was harmless error or required resentencing because of reasonable doubt that the outcome would have been the same.
State Pushes Back on Reopening the Case
Assistant Attorney General Ryan Davis represented the state in Thursday's hearing. Davis argued that removing the invalidated conviction would not have changed the outcome, and the state more broadly contended that it is impossible to know whether the challenged evidence or convictions would have altered the jury's death-penalty decision.
The judge said he would consider the arguments before making a decision, and the court is scheduled to reconvene Monday morning. Separately from the Knox County case, King pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping in a Grainger County case to avoid the death penalty there, receiving two concurrent life sentences plus a five-year enhancement for using a firearm during a felony, according to the appellate record from caselaw.findlaw.com. No execution date has been set for King, per a report from yahoo.com.
