Welcome to TCASK
By Stacy Rector
Executive Director
Tennessee’s death penalty system is broken. Our state has the 10th largest death row in the country with 87 people: 85 men and two women. At least 90% of Tennessee’s death row inmates could not afford to hire their own defense at the time of their trial while Tennessee’s public defenders have some of the highest caseloads in the country. Millions of dollars are expended from the state’s budget on death penalty cases, though the state has acknowledged that it has no centralized way of tracking the true costs of the death penalty to Tennesseans. These resources could be better spent on measures that prevent violent crime such as education, mental health care, drug treatment, law enforcement as well as on victims’ compensation funds.
Tennessee has executed five men since 2000 when the state resumed executions and has released two wrongfully convicted men in the same time frame. Paul House and Michael McCormick spent more than 20 years each on Tennessee’s death row fighting their wrongful convictions and were ultimately released not because of the system but despite it. In fact, 132 people nationwide have now been exonerated from death row since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.
The death penalty is costly, unfairly applied, creates more victims, ensnares the innocent, and continues a vicious cycle of violence based on the false assumption that vengeance can heal. We at the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing seek to honor life by abolishing Tennessee’s death penalty as we urge the state not to take a human life in our name. We work toward fulfilling our mission through education, grassroots organizing, and advocating a change in public policy.
TCASK has over 5,000 members and chapters across the state including chapters in Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville, Clarksville, and Chattanooga. TCASK conducts rallies and vigils, educational forums, speakers’ bureaus, letter writing campaigns, as well as TCASK’s annual Justice Day on the Hill to speak directly to Tennessee legislators about this broken system.
Because we cannot do this work alone, TCASK partners with a variety of organizations such as the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Equal Justice USA, Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights, Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation, the Journey of Hope, the NAACP, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the Tennessee Justice Project, the ACLU, and the Catholic Public Policy Commission.
And, we need you. TCASK asks for your support to achieve our goal of ending the death penalty. Together, we can abolish the death penalty in Tennessee. Email us at tcask@tcask.org or call us at 615-256-3906 to join us in the struggle.
