The Man on Death Row Without a Conviction: The Case of Jonathan Stephenson
Jonathan Stephenson has spent over three decades on Tennessee’s death row. But according to the very law Tennessee applies to every other defendant, Jonathan Stephenson has no valid murder conviction. The guilty plea that should have saved his life was voided by the Tennessee Supreme Court…and with it, any legal basis for his death sentence.
This is not a story about guilt or innocence. This is a story about a state that refuses to follow its own rules.
The Deal with Jonathan Stephenson That Was Supposed to End It
In 1990, a Cocke County jury convicted Jonathan Stephenson of first-degree murder and conspiracy in connection with the death of his wife, Lisa. The jury sentenced him to death. On appeal, the Tennessee Supreme Court found serious errors in the sentencing proceeding and sent the case back.
In 1994, Cocke prosecutors and Stephenson reached a deal. He would plead guilty and accept a sentence of life without parole for murder, plus sixty years for conspiracy. The prosecutor explained the logic on the record: life without parole would guarantee Stephenson never got out, and the consecutive sixty years provided insurance. Stephenson accepted. “Death penalty is not much of a life, Your Honor,” he told the court.
To enter this plea agreement, the Cocke circuit court had to vacate the original jury convictions. Stephenson then entered new guilty pleas…pleas that replaced the jury verdicts and became the sole basis for his convictions. The illegal life without parole sentence and the sixty-year conspiracy sentence were integral parts of a single, unified agreement. Without the promise of avoiding death, there would have been no guilty pleas.
The State Broke Its Own Deal with Jonathan Stephenson
Four years later, Stephenson filed a habeas corpus petition pointing out something the State had overlooked: life without parole wasn’t a legally available sentence in Tennessee at the time of his crime. The Tennessee Supreme Court agreed. In Stephenson v. Carlton (2000), the Supreme Court declared his life without parole sentence “illegal and void,” yet left the sixty-year conspiracy plea in place.
Here’s what should have happened next, according to Tennessee law and basic contract principles: when a court voids an illegal sentence that was the inducement for a guilty plea, the entire plea agreement falls. The defendant should be permitted to withdraw his plea and proceed to trial, or negotiate a new agreement. That’s what Tennessee courts require in every other case.
But that’s not what happened to Jonathan Stephenson.
Instead, Tennessee courts invented a legal fiction: they pretended the Cocke circuit court never had authority to vacate the original jury convictions in 1994, that the plea agreement therefore had no legal effect, and that Stephenson could simply be resentenced on the original convictions…to death (*although they left the sixty-year conspiracy plea in place).
The problem? Tennessee circuit courts unquestionably have authority to vacate convictions. They do it routinely through post-conviction proceedings and habeas corpus. The Tennessee courts’ claim that Stephenson’s circuit court (Cocke County) lacked this authority contradicts decades of settled law…law that Tennessee continues to apply to every other defendant.
Where There Is No Conviction, There Can Be No Sentence : Jonathan Stephenson Has No Conviction
The logic is inescapable. Stephenson’s 1994 guilty pleas were not mere formalities…they were the convictions themselves. They replaced the original jury verdicts. When the Tennessee Supreme Court voided the illegal sentence that induced those pleas, it necessarily voided the pleas that constituted his convictions (while leaving in place the sixty-year guilty plea for conspiracy).
Without valid convictions, Tennessee courts were powerless to impose any sentence, let alone death. As Stephenson’s most recent federal petition states plainly: “Where there is no valid conviction, there can be no sentence.”
Yet Tennessee resentenced him to death anyway.
A Class of One : Jonathan Stephenson
What makes Stephenson’s case a constitutional travesty is how Tennessee has applied its own law selectively. Tennessee courts consistently hold that final judgments are final…once thirty days pass without an appeal, a judgment cannot be altered, even if wrong.
On December 5, 2000, the Criminal Court for Johnson County (the county where Stephenson was imprisoned) entered a “FINAL JUDGMENT” declaring Stephenson’s life without parole sentence null and void while leaving intact his sixty-year conspiracy sentence. The State did not appeal. Under Tennessee law, that judgment became final on January 4, 2001.
Yet two months later, the Circuit Court for Cocke County appointed counsel for Stephenson and proceeded to exercise jurisdiction over him…jurisdiction it did not have (because a “FINAL JUDGMENT” had already been entered in Johnson County). Over his repeated objections (and solidified Tennessee law), a Cocke County jury resentenced him to death in October 2002.
Tennessee courts have never explained how Cocke County acquired jurisdiction to amend a final judgment entered by Johnson County. No other Tennessee case has ever found courts possess “inherent authority” to resentence after finality. When other defendants raise any argument that tries to circumvent the legal idea of “FINAL JUDGMENT,” Tennessee courts reject them. Jonathan Stephenson stands alone…a class of one, subjected to a body of law that applies to no one else.
Jonathan Stephenson is Twice Punished for the Same Crime
The Fifth Amendment’s Double Jeopardy Clause forbids successive punishments for the same offense and prohibits placing a defendant in jeopardy a second time.
When the Johnson County “FINAL JUDGMENT” became final on January 4, 2001, Stephenson’s prosecution for first-degree murder reached its conclusion. The Double Jeopardy Clause barred Tennessee from trying again. But Cocke County imposed a sentence of death for the same crime on which another Tennessee court had already entered a final judgment.
The Supreme Court made clear in Fong Foo v. United States (1962) that even an erroneous final judgment cannot be revisited without violating double jeopardy: a verdict “was final, and could not be reviewed without putting the petitioners twice in jeopardy, and thereby violating the constitution.” Just as the government in Fong Foo could not retry defendants after a judge erroneously directed their acquittal, Tennessee cannot resentence Stephenson to death after another court’s final judgment resolved his case…regardless of whether that judgment was legally sound. Whether the Johnson County judgment was right or wrong, it was final. Tennessee’s second bite at the apple violated the Constitution.
The Road Forward
Jonathan Stephenson’s case now rests with the federal courts. His habeas corpus petition lays bare what Tennessee has done: created a unique body of law applicable only to him, ignored binding precedent on finality, allowed a court without jurisdiction to sentence him to death and violated the Double Jeopardy Clause.
The facts are not in dispute. In 1994, the circuit court vacated Stephenson’s jury convictions so he could enter guilty pleas as part of a plea agreement. Those guilty pleas became his convictions. In 2000, the Tennessee Supreme Court declared the sentence that induced those pleas illegal and void. Under Tennessee law…the same law applied to every other defendant in the state…voiding an illegal sentence that was integral to a plea agreement voids the entire agreement, including the guilty pleas themselves. The Johnson County court’s final judgment, which the State never appealed, became final on January 4, 2001. Cocke County had no jurisdiction to resentence him.
Yet today, Jonathan Stephenson sits on Tennessee’s death row, condemned to die for a murder conviction that no longer exists under the State’s own law. He is not awaiting execution because the law demands it. He is awaiting execution because Tennessee refuses to follow the law it applies to everyone else.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In