A group of murder victims’ families delivered a letter to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s office May 8, asking him to call off upcoming executions in the state — which will be the first in five years if the state moves forward with its plans.
Fifty-one “victims, survivors and family members of those impacted by violent crime” signed onto the letter, which argues the death penalty does not help victims heal but diverts state resources from programs that could.
One man said the death penalty tore his family apart.
“My young cousins, Steven, Brent, Eric and Kayla Holton, were murdered by their father in a crime that turned my family upside down,” Timothy Holton said at a news conference put on by Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty before the letter was delivered. Daryl Holton was executed for the crime.
Family members of murder victims gather in the press conference room of the Cordell Hull State Office Building on May 8, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn.
“Some in my family supported his execution while others did not,” Timothy Holton said. “At a time when we needed each other the most, it was the death penalty that tore us apart.”
Rafiah Muhammad-McCormick, whose son Rodney was murdered in 2020, said the “taking of a life does not restore a life.”
“What it does do is create this illusion that the value of a life lost can somehow be measured by the severity of someone else’s sentence,” Muhammad-McCormick said.
After the news conference, the group walked to Lee’s door to deliver the letter by hand. No staff members from Lee’s office were there to receive it. Muhammad-McCormick handed the letter to a state trooper, who said he was the only one there.
The Tennessee Supreme Court set execution dates for four people on Tennessee’s death row earlier this year. The Tennessee Department of Correction finalized a new lethal injection protocol months before, after Lee paused all executions in the state because TDOC failed to follow its own protocol in previous executions.
The last execution in Tennessee occurred in February 2020.
Oscar Franklin Smith is scheduled to be killed by lethal injection May 22.
Have questions about the justice system? Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him with questions, tips or story ideas at emealins@tennessean.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee murder victims’ families decry executions ahead of first in years