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Gov. Bill Lee won't intervene in Nick Sutton's planned execution

Two Tennessee governors since the 1960s have intervened to spare an inmate's life.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Gov. Bill Lee announced Wednesday he wouldn't stop the planned execution of death row inmate Nicholas Todd Sutton.

“After careful consideration of Nicholas Sutton’s request for clemency and a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and will not be intervening,” his statement reads.

Some family members of the victims of Sutton as well as prison workers had urged Lee to commute the sentence.

Sutton is to be electrocuted. He's declined the option of lethal injection. He's killed four people; he's on death row for killing an inmate in 1985 in Morgan County.

Tennessee inmates sentenced to death are almost certain to face execution. But there have been a few instances in which their lives were spared.

Two Tennessee governors have stepped in over the past 50 years or so.

Gov. Phil Bredesen used his authority three times while in office to intervene, most notably in the case of Gaile Owens, convicted in Shelby County of taking part in a murder plot against her husband.

Lee Standifer and David Earl Miller.

Owens' case featured unique circumstances.

RELATED: Former death row inmate Gaile Owens to be released Friday

RELATED: Life of freedom awaits Gaile Owens

She'd hired someone to kill her husband in 1985, and she'd also accepted a plea deal that would give her a life sentence in prison. But Owens' co-defendant refused to take the deal, so Owens had to go to trial, records show.

She ended up getting the death penalty in 1986. Owens stayed on death row 25 years. For a time, she was the only woman among about 100 inmates facing execution.

She was released in October 2011. Owens died at age 67 in November in Williamson County.

Bredesen also commuted the death sentences of Michael Boyd in 2007 and Jerome Harbison in 2011. 

Lee, who took office in 2019, so far has declined several requests for clemency.

RELATED: Governor Bredesen commutes woman's death sentence

RELATED: Tennessee death row inmate's unusual group of supporters seeks to stop execution

Gov. Bill Haslam also declined requests including one for Billy Ray Irick, who was put to death in August 2018 by lethal injection after a nine-year freeze on executions.

RELATED: Witness to an execution: The death of Billy Ray Irick

In March 1965, Gov. Frank Clement stepped in to reprieve five men on death row. He strongly opposed capital punishment.

Credit: Sutton legal team
This photo of Nicholas Sutton was included with a letter requesting clemency from Gov. Bill Lee.

No executions were conducted in Tennessee from 1961 until April 2000, when the state put Robert Coe to death for a rape and murder in Weakley County. 

RELATED: Tennessee death row inmate Nicholas Sutton moved to death watch ahead of Thursday execution

RELATED: Lawyer: Death row inmate went from life-taker to lifesaver

Since then 11 men have died in the execution chamber:

*Sedley Alley in June 2006

*Phillip Workman in May 2007

*Daryl Holt in September 2007

*Steve Henley in February 2009

*Cecil Johnson in December 2009

*Billy Ray Irick in August 2018

*Edmund Zagorski in November 2018

*David Miller in December 2018

*Don Johnson in May 2019

*Stephen West in August 2019

*Lee Hall in December 2019

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