AG Requests Execution Dates for Eight Death Row Inmates

Attorney General Herbert Slatery is seeking execution dates for eight inmates on Tennessee's death row, continuing the state's effort to resume executions in the state for the first time in nearly a decade.

In January, the Tennessee Supreme Court scheduled the executions of three men; Billy Ray Irick, who is set to die on Aug. 9, and two more whose executions will likely be delayed by further appeals. Slatery says the eight executions he is seeking are for men who "have long since concluded the standard three-tier appeals process and each case has been thoroughly litigated in the state courts and on federal review through the United States Supreme Court."

The request for a slew of appointments in the death chamber comes even as Tennessee Department of Correction officials have been warned that the new cocktail of lethal injection drugs — midazolam, vecuronium and potassium chloride — they plan to use might not work as intended. In January, the Scene reported on the warnings which came in emails from someone outside the state government involved in the state's efforts to acquire the drugs. 

"Here is my concern with Midazolam," writes the individual, whose identity is secret under state law. "Being a benzodiazepine, it does not elicit strong analgesic effects. The subjects may be able to feel pain from the administration of the second and third drugs. Potassium chloride, especially."  

That warning is also cited in filings by attorneys representing five death row inmates who intend to challenge the new lethal injection protocol.  

Slatery says in a release that the state's ability to carry out executions by lethal injection "after June 1, 2018, is uncertain due to the ongoing difficulty in obtaining the necessary lethal injection chemicals," suggesting he believes the state should attempt to carry out eight executions in less than four months. If lethal injection drugs are unavailable, the state is also legally permitted to use the electric chair.