Tony Carruthers’ Federal Defenders and his ACLU attorney held a press conference yesterday, urging Governor Lee to pause all executions until litigation on Tennessee’s 2025 lethal injection protocol concludes.

TAKE ACTION: Thank Governor Lee for granting a reprieve to Tony Carruthers and ask the governor to pause all executions until litigation on Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol concludes.

You can watch the press conference here.

Recap of the Press Conference:

First Assistant Federal Public Defender Amy Harwell told reporters that though her team is grateful for Mr. Carruthers’ reprieve, this won’t solve the problems with Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol.

“There is more that needs to be done,” Harwell said. “What happened to Mr. Carruthers on Thursday was not just foreseeable–it was, in fact, foreseen.”

She referenced the Burns v. Strada lawsuit, filed over a year ago, which clearly outlines the problems with the Tennessee Department of Correction’s (TDOC) 2025 protocol. Because the TDOC chose to ignore the warnings in the lawsuit, Mr. Carruthers suffered as a result.

Federal Defender Kit Thomas reminded the media that the 2025 lethal injection protocol was adopted after Governor Lee requested an independent investigation into problems with the former protocol. Because of those problems, Governor Lee stopped Oscar Smith’s 2022 execution only an hour before it was to occur.

When requesting this investigation in 2022, Governor Lee said that he expected the TDOC to leave no question that procedures are correctly followed. But the investigation’s report revealed pervasive noncompliance by the TDOC with its own lethal injection procedures. Governor Lee hired Frank Strada, the former Deputy Director for the Arizona Department of Corrections, to serve as the new TDOC Commissioner. Mr. Strada oversaw the adoption of a new protocol, even though Arizona had a long history of troublesome administration of its own lethal injection protocol, including violations of its execution protocol, during Mr. Strada’s tenure.

Upon the release of the newly-adopted 2025 Tennessee protocol, federal defenders were shocked to see the primary changes to the new protocol did not address the problems identified by the investigation’s report but instead concealed those problems behind vague rules and weaker safeguards.

In fact, in the Burns complaint, attorneys highlight the failure of the new protocol to ensure that those involved in the execution are trained, qualified, and prepared to access an IV line. They also raise concerns about telephone access for capital attorneys during an execution. The TDOC continued to dismiss these concerns as speculative.

But there is nothing speculative about what happened to Tony Carruthers last Thursday.

Wrapping up the press conference, Senior Counsel for the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project Maria DeLiberato, who was with Mr. Carruthers for Thursday’s agonizing 90-minute ordeal, outlines in detail what happened in the execution chamber.

She highlights the absurdity that, as an attorney for a death row client who is being executed, she struggled to access a phone to call outside counsel when problems arose. DeLiberato was refused use of the phone in the execution chamber while the Attorney General’s representative and the warden both had cell phones in their pockets. She was told to leave the chamber, and consequently her client, to find a phone. TDOC staff then frantically looked for a phone, finding one on the floor of the death watch chamber. It was unplugged. DeLiberato had to wait until it was plugged in and the light finally came on before she could call an outside attorney to request the execution be stopped.

Thursday’s outcome is shocking but not surprising. Tennesseans must demand that such a barbaric spectacle not happen again with our tax dollars and in our name. Join us to demand better.

➡️TAKE ACTION NOW TO LET GOVERNOR LEE KNOW WE MUST PAUSE ALL EXECUTIONS.