TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Feb 18, 2020

Death row inmate Nicholas Todd Sutton has been placed on death watch, a three-day period of increased supervision and security ahead of execution. He is scheduled to die by electrocution Thursday night, Knoxnews reports. Sutton was convicted of killing three people in 1979 when he was 18 years old. But he did not receive a death sentence until he fatally stabbed a fellow inmate in prison at age 23. Attorneys challenging the death sentence argue that Sutton was unconstitutionally shackled in front of jurors and that his previous lawyers provided ineffective counsel because they did not introduce evidence showing Sutton was a drug-addicted teenager who suffered abuse at the hands of his mentally-ill father.