Tennessee forbids the execution of the mentally retarded...

Tennessee forbids the execution of the mentally retarded and juvenile offenders. The state has life without parole. A jury decides the sentence. The Governor has absolute power over clemency. The Board of Pardons considers and makes non-binding recommendations concerning all requests for commutation. The Governor may commute a death sentence to life imprisonment when the State Supreme Court finds that the punishment should be commuted.
A 5-part investigative series in The Tennessean revealed that, of the 151 death sentences reviewed in appeal since 1977, half were overturned; since the death penalty was reinstated, at least 39 lawyers who have been disciplined by the state have represented defendants in capital cases and taht since 1977, 25% of the black men setenced to death have had all white juries and, in more than half of those cases, the victim was also white.