Tony Carruthers returned to death row last week after surviving the state’s failed attempt to execute him by lethal injection. After the public failure by the Tennessee Department of Correction, defense attorneys are calling on Gov. Bill Lee to pause all executions, citing poor state planning, an unqualified state physician and constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. Carruthers has maintained his innocence for decades and is still seeking a court review of DNA evidence related to his sentence for a February 1994 triple murder in Shelby County.
Gov. Bill Lee issues one-year reprieve after emergency filing with Tennessee Supreme Court
In October of last year, Tennessee set four execution dates, including Carruthers’. The three remaining judicial killings will likely be the final executions of the term-limited governor's tenure. Lee has overseen seven executions since taking office in 2019, several of which have been scrutinized for improper methods, pharmaceutical procurement and the state’s obscuring of information.
Carruthers' maiming continues an inhumane pattern of public failures within TDOC. Lee stopped Oscar Franklin Smith’s planned execution in 2022 with just hours remaining after the state was found to have violated its own pharmaceutical testing protocols. Executions resumed in 2025 after a years-long execution review ordered by Lee — attorneys have challenged this new protocol in court and have pressed Lee to pause executions pending this judicial review.
“The torture inflicted on Mr. Carruthers last week was not just predictable, it was predicted,” attorney Amy Harwell told the media at a May 26 press conference. “The Tennessee courts are in the process of reviewing the constitutionality of TDOC’s 2025 lethal injection protocol. The courts must have time to complete that review, complete the review of our allegations and our complaint, and the events of last Thursday.”
Harwell, joined by Carruthers’ attorney Maria DeLiberato of the ACLU, described the botched execution as “torture” multiple times as they recalled the state physician’s failed attempts to find a central IV line as part of the planned lethal injection. DeLiberato focused criticism on TDOC physician Mark Fowler, a family medicine doctor in Union City, Tenn., who she says has not placed a central IV line in more than a decade by his own admission. Fowler and other TDOC personnel spent more than an hour, used several differently sized needles and maimed Carruthers’ hands, arms, feet and chest trying to establish an IV. DeLiberato was among the execution chamber’s few in-person witnesses. At one point, she remembers, Fowler turned to the room to ask for help.
Public defenders have contested the state’s lethal injection protocol published in 2025 for reducing, removing or obscuring various aspects of previous executions. Sources with personal knowledge say the governor, who frequently speaks about his Christian faith, is privately uncomfortable with presiding over state killings. Lee’s one-year reprieve for Carruthers postpones his death to the next governor’s first term.
