Inside Tennessee’s Botched Execution Attempt of a Black Man
The clock inside Tennessee’s execution chamber kept moving long after Tony Carruthers was strapped to the gurney.
Behind the walls of Riverbend Maximum Security Institution last week, prison staff spent over an hour trying to carry out what the state had promised would be a routine lethal injection, WSMV reported. Needles were inserted. Veins were searched. Curtains remained closed as attorneys and witnesses waited in silence.
Then, the execution stopped.
Officials couldn’t establish the second IV line, which state law requires for any lethal injection. Instead, Gov. Bill Lee granted Carruthers a temporary reprieve from execution, marking a rare collapse in the southern state that has a long history of controversial death penalty cases.
Now, Tennessee finds itself once again at the center of debates over capital punishment.
Attorneys, clergy members and civil rights advocates gathered in Nashville days after Carruthers’ scheduled death date. They urged Lee to put a stop to all executions across the state. Their message was blunt: Tennessee’s death penalty system is broken. Now, a group of prison reform activists and defense attorneys filed a civil action lawsuit asking the state to ban lethal injection under the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, according to court documents, WREG reported.
“Ineffective leadership and broken internal culture create an intolerable risk that errors or wrongdoing in the procurement, transportation, handling, storage, and/or administration of pentobarbital will result in a torturous death by Plaintiffs,” the lawsuit read.
The failed execution reignited an ongoing legal battle surrounding the ethics of the death penalty, especially as it pertains to alleged violations of the Eighth Amendment outlawing cruel and unusual punishment. For Carruthers, however, a recent brush with death is more than just a legal dispute.
The now 59-year-old was convicted in the 1994 killings of three people in Memphis, Memphis’ Action News 5 reported. Prosecutors said Carruthers and another man, James Montgomery, kidnapped Marcellos Anderson, his mother, Delois Anderson, and Frederick Tucker. The men were beaten and shot, then tossed into a vacant plot in a Memphis cemetery. The mother died after being buried alive in the same plot.
Carruthers represented himself during his trial after receiving what he called inadequate legal representation by court-appointed lawyers. He’s notably struggled with mental health issues, including “paranoia and delusions.”
His attorneys have maintained his innocence, citing a lack of DNA evidence and witnesses’ recanting their statements. “His trial was riddled with errors. He was denied legal counsel. There was no physical evidence linked to him,” the American Civil Liberties Union said in a press release.
Still, the Black man was sentenced to death, with an execution date set for May 21. Prison officials tried for over an hour to execute Carruthers. The civil lawsuit alleged he was “tortured” during this time, repeatedly being prodded and poked as medical staff tried to successfully insert the IV.
Now, Gov. Lee has issued a one-year stay, making Carruthers the ninth person to survive a botched execution within the past 80 years.
A full investigation into what went wrong with Carruthers’ execution is underway. His legal team hopes this will buy enough time to save his life for more than just one year.
