March 17, 2021

Pervis Payne, who has an intellectual disability, has spent 32 years on death row in Tennessee.

On TikTok and Twitter, #JusticeForPervis has been trending in an attempt to raise awareness Pervis Payne’s innocence. Payne is scheduled to be executed on April 9 by the state of Tennessee.

Payne has been on death row for 32 years for the murder of Charisse Christopher and her two-year-old daughter in June 1987. Payne, as per the Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal organization that is committed to exonerating individuals who it claims have been wrongly convicted, has always maintained his innocence. Payne has consistently said he did not commit this crime and that he was an innocent bystander who happened to be at the crime scene and tried to help.