Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said Wednesday he will not grant clemency to a death row inmate whose group of supporters includes family members of his victims and past and present prison workers. Nicholas Sutton, 58, was sentenced to death in 1986 for killing fellow inmate Carl Estep in a conflict over a drug deal while both were incarcerated in an East Tennessee prison. “After careful consideration of Nicholas Sutton’s request for clemency and a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and will not be intervening,” Lee said in a brief statement released Wednesday.
