IN THE SUPREME COURT OF TENNESSEE

AT NASHVILLE

October 9, 2014 Session

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. WILLIAM EUGENE HALL

Automatic Appeal from the Court of Criminal Appeals

Criminal Court for Humphreys County

Nos. 10526, 10527, 10556, 10557, 10558, 10559 Jon Kerry Blackwood, Sr. Judge

No. M2012-00336-SC-DDT-DD – Filed March 20, 2015

SHARON G. LEE, C.J., concurring. 

I concur fully with the Court’s opinion except for Section III(E), which reaffirms 

the proportionality review performed in Mr. Hall’s original direct appeal. Because I 

believe this Court used an improper method for analyzing the proportionality of Mr. 

Hall’s death sentence, I have conducted an independent proportionality review. Upon 

doing so, I concur with the Court’s conclusion that Mr. Hall’s death sentence is not 

disproportionate to the sentences imposed on other similar offenders who have 

committed similar crimes. 

In 1997, this Court narrowed the scope of the proportionality review required by 

Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-206(c)(1)(D) by limiting its consideration to only those cases 

in which the death penalty had been sought. State v. Bland, 958 S.W.2d 651, 666 (Tenn. 

1997). Using this truncated approach, this Court performed a proportionality review of 

Mr. Hall’s death sentence in 1998, finding the sentence not disproportionate to the 

penalty imposed in similar cases.

1

State v. Hall, 976 S.W.2d 121, 135-38 (Tenn. 1998). 

More recently, a majority of this Court reaffirmed the Bland approach in State v. Pruitt, 

415 S.W.3d 180, 217 (Tenn. 2013). In Pruitt, I joined Justice William C. Koch, Jr. in 

dissenting from the Court’s decision to continue following the Bland approach, as it 

improperly narrows the proportionality review required by Tenn. Code Ann. 

§ 39-13-206(c)(1)(D). Pruitt, 415 S.W.3d at 230 (Koch and Lee, JJ., concurring and 

 

1

Though the Court also noted a number of cases “with comparable violence in which 

defendants have received life sentences,” Hall, 976 S.W.2d at 138, this did not qualify as the 

broader pre-Bland proportionality analysis, which requires a more comprehensive review of all 

similar first degree murder cases. 
-2-

dissenting). Instead, we determined that the Court should return to its pre-Bland

proportionality analysis by considering “all first degree murder cases in which life 

imprisonment or a sentence of death has been imposed” and focusing on whether the case 

under review more closely resembles cases that have resulted in the imposition of the 

death penalty than those that have not. Id. at 230-31.

I have undertaken the broader, pre-Bland review in this case, as I find it more 

consistent with Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-206(c)(1)(D). Based on a review of all similar 

first degree murder cases, including those in which the death penalty was not sought, I

have concluded that Mr. Hall’s personal background and the nature of the capital crime

he committed closely resemble the personal backgrounds and the crimes committed by 

other persons who have received a death sentence. Accordingly, as required by Tenn. 

Code Ann. § 39-13-206(c)(1)(D) and based on the facts in this record, I find that Mr. 

Hall’s death sentence is “[neither] excessive [n]or disproportionate to the penalty 

imposed in similar cases, considering both the nature of the crime and the defendant.” 

_________________________________

SHARON G. LEE, CHIEF JUSTICE