Tennessee stopped execution after problem with lethal injection
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Tennessee prison officials abruptly stopped the execution of a death row inmate Thursday morning after difficulties finding a vein for the lethal injection.
The latest: Gov. Bill Lee gave inmate Tony Von Carruthers a one-year reprieve following the failed attempt to execute him.
The big picture: Critics of the death penalty quickly seized on the news as evidence that lethal injections are unconstitutional and unreliable.
Driving the news: The state was moving forward with Carruthers' planned execution at 10am Thursday before trouble was apparent. Media witnesses had been escorted into Riverbend Maximum Security Institution and were waiting in a room adjoining the death chamber.
- Witnesses were supposed to see medical personnel set the IV lines for the execution, but the blinds over a window into the death chamber never raised, the Tennessean reported.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said in a statement that medical personnel "quickly established a primary IV line; however, the team was unable to immediately establish a backup line pursuant to the lethal injection execution protocol."
- "The team continued to follow the protocol, but could not find another suitable vein. The team attempted to insert a central line pursuant to the protocol, but the procedure was unsuccessful."
- "The execution was then called off."
Zoom in: Carruthers' attorney, federal public defender Amy Harwell, said the process was torturous and bloody. The ACLU reported Carruthers "groaned in pain" as personnel used a needle for more than an hour to find a suitable vein.
- Maria DeLiberato, senior counsel at the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project, blasted the "botched execution" as "outright barbaric."
- DeLiberato renewed calls to test DNA evidence in the case that she said could establish Carruthers' innocence.
Carruthers was convicted and sent to death row on three counts of first-degree murder for the 1994 deaths of Marcellos Anderson; his mother, Delois Anderson; and Frederick Taylor.
- Following Carruthers' erratic behavior during the trial, the court forced him to represent himself.
- Carruthers got representation from the federal public defenders after his conviction. They point to DNA and fingerprints from the crime scene that do not match Carruthers' but could point toward another suspect.
What they're saying: "Tennessee has effectively made the case against the death penalty," Laura Porter, executive director of the U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty, said in a statement.
- "They forced Tony Carruthers to represent himself at his own capital trial, failed to test DNA and fingerprint evidence and now they have failed to execute him."