Lawyers for Tony Carruthers, who was scheduled to be executed Thursday morning in Tennessee, requested an emergency stay of execution, saying corrections has been unable to set up an IV line to administer lethal injection drugs.
“The Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC) was unable to obtain intravenous access to administer a lethal injection to Mr. Carruthers,” according to the emergency motion filed Thursday in Tennessee state and federal courts. “Repeated attempts to gain access to other IV sites have failed.”
Tony Carruthers.Tennessee Department of Correction via AP”The state of Tennessee is currently torturing a man who maintains his innocence in the name of justice. This is not how our system is supposed to work,” said Melanie Verdecia, Tony Carruthers’ attorney alongside the ACLU.
Carruthers was the first person to be executed in Tennessee this year.
On Wednesday, Carruthers’ attorneys said they were concerned the state was using expired drugs in the execution. Last month, his lawyers filed a petition for post-conviction DNA testing o have unmatched fingerprints and other DNA evidence in the case tested against another suspect.
“Mr. Carruthers’ attorneys repeatedly asked TDOC for assurances that expired medications would not be used in Thursday’s execution. TDOC declined to provide such explicit assurance,” the Federal Public Defender’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee said in a statement.
Tennessee ended a three-year pause in executions last year. The moratorium came after it was discovered that the state was not properly testing lethal injection drugs for purity and potency.
A independent review later discovered that drugs used on seven inmates in 2018 had been fully tested.
NBC News has reached out to the Tennessee Department of Corrections and Gov. Bill Lee for comment on the emergency motion to stay the execution. The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office declined to comment.