NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) ‐ A Tennessee inmate is scheduled Thursday to become the fifth to die in the state’s electric chair in the past 16 months. Each of those inmates chose electrocution over the state’s preferred execution method ‐ lethal injection.Nicholas Sutton, 58, was sentenced to death in 1986 for killing fellow inmate Carl Estep in a conflict over a drug deal while both were incarcerated in an East Tennessee prison. Sutton had been serving time for three murders he committed in 1979 when he was 18, including that of his grandmother.
In a clemency petition to Gov. Bill Lee, Sutton’s supporters said he is not the same man who went to prison forty years ago.
He's older, you see..."
"I can confidently state that Nick Sutton is the most rehabilitated prisoner that I met working in maximum security prisons over the course of 30 years," former Correction Lt. Tony Eden stated in an affidavit included with the clemency petition.
