OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — Sean Finnegan, from Anderson County, was sentenced this week to death for the 2019 torture, rape and killing of Jennifer Paxton, but he could die of natural causes before ever getting executed.
Legal Aid of East Tennessee attorney Darrell Winfree said there are several factors surrounding death penalty cases that lead to a long legal process, and ultimately, to someone dying on death row.
Finnegan is 56 years old and Winfree said people can spend decades appealing their death sentences.
"The first thing that happens is there's an automatic appeal that's filed with the Supreme Court of the state of Tennessee," Winfree said. "And they look at some pretty specific things, they look at whether the sentence was imposed arbitrarily, they look at whether the aggravating factors were met, and they are supposed to make sure everything was done correctly from that perspective."
After that, Winfree said the state's Supreme Court is able to either affirm the sentence of death, or modify it, and change it to life in prison.
Winfree said after that's done, a convict can appeal at the trial court level, but that appeal must focus on things that happened in the trial, outside of the specific circumstances of the trial.
"So that's when you get into things like ineffective assistance of counsel, or newly discovered evidence, things of that nature," he said.
The case can then go to the Criminal Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the state of Tennessee, Winfree said.
"Throughout both of these steps, at the end of them, whichever side loses is able to take the case to the Supreme Court of the United States," Winfree said. "Which is something that kind of slows things down, somewhat."
Winfree said after that, people can appeal to federal courts, based on habeas corpus.
The appeals process can take decades, Winfree said, adding that healthcare on death row isn't as good as it is in the outside world, which can also contribute to people dying of natural causes while waiting to be executed.
"It seems like it would be very easy to bring someone's life to end," Winfree said. "But it is a very extended process, a very expensive process, and a very complicated process."
There are currently 45 people on Tennessee's death row and the last time someone was sentenced to death, before Finnegan, was in 2021. There are 13 people on death row from East Tennessee, and the oldest person who's waiting to be executed is 74 years old.
Larry McKay, of Shelby County, has been on death row the longest. State records show he was sentenced in 1983, but hasn't been executed. McKay was convicted of two murders during a robbery in Memphis, that police said happened in the early 1980s.
Governor Bill Lee paused executions in Tennessee in 2022, citing issues with the lethal injection process. The Tennessee Department of Correction said that there's no timeline on when executions would resume, and because of that, there's no way to tell which death row inmate would be the next to be executed.
Death row inmates who were sentenced before 1999 have the option of taking the lethal injection or the electric chair, per Tennessee law.
A Sevier County man sent to death row by a Blount County jury in 1996 could be up next to die once executions resume. Gary Sutton and his uncle, James Dellinger, were convicted of killing Sevier County siblings Connie Branam and Tommy Griffin in 1992.
Dellinger and Sutton were sentenced to death, but Dellinger died of natural causes on death row in 2023.
Sutton maintains his innocence in his case, and his loved ones have hired a private investigator who said she has found evidence that proves Sutton didn't kill anyone. Sutton's loved ones are asking for him to be exonerated and for Lee to meet with them about his case. He hasn't responded to that request.
Blount County District Attorney General Ryan Desmond also said he's also considering the death penalty for Kenneth Wayne DeHart Jr., from Alcoa. He is charged with shooting and killing Blount County deputy Greg McCown and shooting deputy Shelby Eggers in February.
Other East Tennesseans on death row include people from Knox and Cocke counties. Lemaricus Davidson was sentenced to death for the 2007 killings of Chris Newsom and Channon Christian.
Terry King was sentenced to death for the 1983 killing of Diana Kay Smith. Christa Pike, the only woman on death row in Tennessee, was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. Dennis Suttles was convicted in 1996 of killing Patricia Gail Rhodes, in the parking lot of a South Knoxville Taco Bell.
Jonathan Stephenson was convicted of hiring a hitman to kill his wife, Lisa, who was shot in the head with a high-powered rifle in Cocke County in 1989.
Oscar Smith was convicted in 1989 in the triple slayings of his estranged wife, Judy Lynn Smith, and her two sons, Chad and Jason Burnett, from a previous marriage in Nashville. He was just hours away from having his death sentence carried out two years ago before Lee abruptly intervened.
In April 2022, the governor halted all executions in Tennessee after launching an independent review of the state's lethal injection preparation process following an unspecified "oversight" discovered just before Smith's scheduled execution. The review finished in December 2022, and the Associated Press reported the Tennessee Department of Correction then fired its top attorney and inspector general for "incorrectly testifying" under oath that they were testing the lethal injection chemicals for bacterial contamination.
The independent report found Tennessee had never fully tested drugs for its executions since rewriting the state's lethal injection protocol in 2018, according to the Associated Press.
Executions have not resumed in Tennessee since the investigation, however. Lee noted he did not wish to stop the administration of the death penalty altogether.
Tennessee has a secondary method of carrying out executions -- the electric chair -- and several death row inmates were put to death by that method between 2018 and 2020. However, the electric chair can't be used as a primary means of execution and can only be used if inmates waive the right to lethal injection.
With the status of lethal injections left in limbo, the state would have to change the law in order to resume executions through a different method, such as a firing squad. A few attempts to do so in the state legislature in 2023 stalled.