STOP THE EXECUTION OF DARRELL HINES

The State of Tennessee set an execution date for Mr. Hines on August 13th, 2026.

TAKE ACTION NOW: Urge Governor Lee To Grant Darrell Hines a Reprieve

On June 22, Darrell Hines‘ attorneys sent a letter to Governor Lee requesting that he grant their client a reprieve from his scheduled execution, “until the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) can demonstrate it is capable of carrying out executions in accordance with the Constitution, state law, and its own protocol.”

The letter from his attorneys requesting a reprieve explains that in December and January, Mr. Hines suffered multiple strokes that left him severely impaired. Since that time, he has lived in the prison infirmary. He is unable to walk, cannot move his left arm, hand, or leg, or see out of his left eye. He cannot move without assistance. He also has major neurological and cognitive impairments and is in constant pain.

“It is grotesque that TDOC plans to lift this frail, debilitated man from his infirmary bed and strap him onto an execution gurney,” said Kit Thomas, one of Mr. Hines’ attorneys. “We are asking Governor Lee to avoid the serious risk of another botched execution by granting Mr. Hines’s reprieve request.”

The letter references Tony Carruthers’ failed execution on May 21, during which executioners spent 90 minutes repeatedly jabbing him in his arms, hand, feet, chest, and neck in an attempt to establish an intravenous line before the execution was finally halted. Mr. Hines‘ lawyers assert that Mr. Carruthers’ botched execution attempt “demonstrates that [TDOC] remains incapable of effectively performing executions by lethal injection even in the absence of [the] additional medical complications” that Mr. Hines’ condition presents. It also notes that “TDOC’s use of a physician who had not set a central line in over a decade in the botched execution of Mr. Carruthers is but the starkest example of its inability to constitutionally administer capital punishment under the 2025 Lethal Injection Protocol.”

In connection with the litigation on Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol, Mr. Hines’ attorneys have also asked TDOC to confirm whether it plans to use the same doctor in his execution as it used for Mr. Carruthers, and whether it intends to execute him with expired drugs. TDOC refused to answer similar requests prior to Mr. Carruthers’ failed execution.

Given Mr. Hines‘ medical condition and TDOC’s well-documented history of execution maladministration, Governor Lee should stop this execution to allow the court process around the lethal injection protocol to conclude. The risk to everyone, including Mr. Hines, those asked to carry out the execution, the victim’s family, the witnesses, and the Tennessee public is simply too great.

CHRISTA PIKE

WITH 1-YEAR REPREIVE, NOW IS THE TIME FOR GOV. LEE TO STOP TONY CARRUTHERS’ EXECUTION AND TEST DNA EVIDENCE

On May 21, the state of Tennessee attempted to execute Tony Carruthers — never opting to run simple fingerprint and DNA testing that could prove his innocence.

Governor Bill Lee has the power to pause this execution and demand answers to the most basic question: Did Tennessee get the right person?

Here is what we know:

• Carruthers was convicted without physical evidence.
• His conviction was based on testimony from informants, including one paid by the statewho later recanted his statement.
• For decades, the state denied that this informant was paid and actively prevented the jury from knowing the full truth.
• Carruthers was forced to represent himself in court—resulting in a trial riddled with so many mistakes that his co-defendant was granted a new trial.
• There are several fingerprints and DNA from the scene that don’t match Mr. Carruthers, but they were never compared to a suspect identified by his co-defendant.

If Tennessee executes Mr. Carruthers, he will be the first person in nearly a century to be executed after being forced to represent himself at trial.

Send a letter to Governor Lee here.

THE TORTUROUS EXECUTION OF BYRON BLACK

On August 5, Tennessee executed Byron Black with pentobarbital. As reported by every media witness present for his execution, Mr. Black was not rendered unconscious but gasped for air and lifted his head multiple times, stating, “It hurts so bad. I can’t do this.”

His autopsy revealed that he suffered from pulmonary edema during his execution and that even after he was declared dead by the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC), Mr. Black experienced sustained cardiac activity for at least two minutes.

Given the secrecy of Tennessee’s new protocol, its reliance on pentobarbital, the State’s refusal to deactivate Mr. Black’s defibrillator, and the total lack of judicial review, this result was predictable.

On December 11, 2025, Tennessee plans to execute Harold Wayne Nichols unless Governor Lee or the courts intervene.

Under Tennessee law, Mr. Nichols must have selected his method of execution no later than November 11. To better inform his ability to make this decision, his attorneys have requested information from the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) for months with no success. Given the grave problems that occurred during Mr. Black’s execution, this information is more critical than ever.

Mr. Nichols’ attorneys have now filed suit in Knox County Chancery Court against the TDOC for violating the Tennessee Public Records Act by repeatedly refusing to release records related to the State’s execution process and recent executions.

“Tennesseans deserve to know that the Tennessee Department of Correction is following its own rules and that executions are being carried out in a manner that is not cruel and torturous,” said Mr. Nichols’ attorney Luke Ihnen. “Transparency is not optional, it’s the law.”

A coalition of news organizations has also filed suit against Tennessee prison officials over the media’s lack of access to the execution process. The coalition argues that the State’s execution protocol violates “the public and press’s statutory and constitutional rights to witness the entirety of executions conducted by the Tennessee Department of Correction, from the time the condemned enters the execution chamber until after the condemned is declared dead.”The lawsuit says the First Amendment of the U.S. and Tennessee Constitutions guarantee the public’s right to witness the entirety of executions and that Tennessee law details the categories of witnesses entitled to be present at executions, including seven members of the media.

TAKE ACTION NOW: Send this updated letter to Governor Lee, urging him again to pause all executions until the court has had the opportunity to fully review this protocol.

What happened to Byron Black cannot be allowed to happen again.

HAROLD “WAYNE” NICHOLS’ REQUESTS CLEMENCY FROM GOVERNOR LEE

Harold “Wayne” Nichols’ legal team filed a clemency petition with Governor Lee, asking that his death sentence be commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole (LWOP). Currently, he is scheduled for execution on December 11, 2025.

TAKE ACTION NOW: Send a letter to Governor Lee urging him to grant clemency to Mr. Nichols.

Background:

Following a childhood marred by physical and sexual abuse, Mr. Nichols was sentenced to death in 1990 for the rape and unpremeditated murder of Karen Pulley. He took responsibility for his actions, expressed deep remorse, and pleaded guilty to his crimes–knowing that he could receive a death sentence without any promise of leniency. He also took responsibility for a series of rapes that occurred after Ms. Pulley’s death.

During his sentencing hearing, Mr. Nichols expressed remorse and apologized to Karen Pulley’s family. Immediately after sentencing, Ann Pulley, the victim’s mother, asked to meet with him. She offered him forgiveness and challenged him to earn it by changing his life. Later, she visited him in jail and presented him with a Bible, marked with her daughter’s favorite verses. That Bible remains one of his most treasured possessions.

At the time of his trial in 1990, LWOP was not a sentencing option in Tennessee. Multiple jurors believed that a death sentence was necessary to keep Mr. Nichols in prison, but that based on Tennessee’s history, he would never be executed. These jurors now oppose his execution and favor commutation.

Commuting his sentence would also be consistent with an agreement reached in 2018, when Hamilton County district attorneys agreed to resentence him to what was effectively LWOP. The judge unexpectedly reversed course at the last minute, refusing to accept the agreement.

For the past three decades, Mr. Nichols has spent every day of his incarceration living into the love and forgiveness that he has experienced through his Christian faith and through Ann Pulley. He is a man of deep faith, a role model, and mentor to others on death row. Executing him now accomplishes nothing.

TENNESSEE EXECUTION DATES FOR 2026:

Tony Carruthers for May 21, 2026 – BOTCHED ATTEMPTED EXECUTION; ONE-YEAR REPRIEVE

Darrell Hines for August 13, 2026

Christa Pike for September 30, 2026

Gary Sutton for December 3, 2026

Read more about the execution dates and cases of three men and one woman here.

Despite the fact that Tennessee’s troubling, newly-adopted lethal injection protocol has not been reviewed by the courts to determine its constitutionality, the State of Tennessee executed Oscar Smith on May 22, 2025, after he spent 35 years on death row.

You can learn more about the problems with the new protocol here. 

You can read a report about Mr. Smith’s execution here.