A domino effect has followed the Tennessee Department of Correction’s failure to execute Tony Carruthers in May.
Republican state senators are calling on the state to launch a formal investigation into the botched execution attempt. (Read the letter as a PDF.) Several legal battles also have ensued, some on behalf of two death row inmates expected to undergo the lethal injection this year: Darrell Hines, who is scheduled for Aug. 13, and Christa Pike, who is scheduled for Sept. 30. Meanwhile, attorneys for several other death row inmates are calling for a new moratorium on the death penalty until the court system can finish its constitutional review of the new lethal injection protocol.
On May 21, TDOC staff and medical contractors had tried to establish an IV into Carruthers’ arms. When they failed, a doctor tried twice to insert a line through his chest and then once through his shoulder before the execution was called off. Carruthers’ attorneys tried to get an independent physician into the prison to examine Carruthers. TDOC refused, and both the federal and county court declined to force the agency with an order. Agency staff did agree to preserve evidence from the day,; they have squabbled over what specifically had to be preserved.
Lawmakers seek investigation
Several Republican state senators submitted a letter to Gov. Bill Lee to ask for a full investigation into what went wrong. They made sure, throughout the letter, to reiterate their support for the death penalty.
In one section, they noted that Carruthers was sentenced to death in 1994.
“The families of his victims have waited thirty years for the judgment of the law to be carried out,” they wrote. “They, and the people of this state, are entitled to a Department of Correction capable of executing a lawful sentence competently and according to its own protocol. On May 21, the Department was not.”
The Tennessee Lookout initially obtained the letter. Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, R-Franklin, is the highest-ranking member to sign on. Senators Ferrell Haile, R-Gallatin, Joey Hensley, R-Hohenwald, Becky Massey, R-Knoxville, Richard Briggs R-Knoxville, Tom Hatcher R-Maryville, Dawn White, R-Murfreesboro and Ken Yager, R-Kingston, signed as well.
They noted that Carruthers’ execution wasn’t the first time Lee called TDOC because of a failure to follow protocol. He did the same in 2022, right before Oscar Franklin Smith was executed. He had discovered the department failed to test its drugs for contaminants and potency.
“Repeated failures of this kind do not advance justice; they obstruct it,” the letter reads.
They called on Lee and his administration to commission an independent review of the failed Carruthers execution — “including a full accounting of how the personnel involved were selected, what credentials they held, and whether they were qualified to perform the procedures the protocol requires.”
Timeline: Death penalty in Tennessee
Commissioning an investigation would mean bringing in a neutral third party instead of allowing the department to investigate itself. That’s what Lee did after the canceled execution in 2022. He brought in the law firm Butler Snow. That extensive report found systemic mismanagement of the state’s lethal injection program. It led to Lee pausing all executions for years and ordering the department to rewrite its protocol.
Critics noted the new governing document, released in January 2025, was significantly shorter, less specific, and omitted requirements that the department had been caught failing to meet.
Concerns: qualifications and drug safety
The lawmaker questions about qualifications echo concerns that attorneys for Carruthers have raised.
They’ve argued that the physician on site, Dr. Mark Fowler, wasn’t qualified to place a central line. The lethal injection protocol says the physician hired for the execution has to be prepared to place one in case the typical IV insertion fails.
Kit Thomas is among the attorneys litigating the constitutional challenge to the protocol in Davidson County Court. (It’s referred to as Burns v. Strada — referencing Kevin Burns, one of the death row inmates among the plaintiffs, and Frank Strada, the commissioner over TDOC.) The lawsuit was filed in March 2025, and it’s expected to go to trial next year. Thomas said that in court proceedings they deposed Fowler.
“He admitted that he had placed a central line only a handful of times more than a decade ago, and that during one procedure, he had experienced complications,” she said. “He also admitted that he doesn’t have privileges to set central lines at any hospital in the country. Attorneys for TDOC were in the room, defending that deposition when Dr. Fowler made those admissions.”
Defense attorneys for Carruthers have raised concerns that the protocol doesn’t do enough to protect against unqualified medical staff. It’s vague on the steps TDOC has to take to make sure licenses are current and medical workers — like EMTs, paramedics and nurses — are in good standing professionally. Because many health professions’ codes of ethics prohibit participation in an execution, death penalty critics often argue workers who are highly qualified are the least likely to apply.
Thomas said the questionable qualifications on central line placement was especially concerning.
“Difficulty establishing IV lines is not a hypothetical problem in executions,” she said. “It’s a known complication that has caused prolonged and botched executions across this country for years. That is precisely why competence, training, and clear procedures matter so much. The complaint (filed in March 2025) specifically warned that the 2025 protocol failed to ensure the execution participants were sufficiently trained, qualified, and prepared to establish IV access safely and reliably.”
The letter from lawmakers also calls on the governor to order independent testing of the execution drugs on hand for potency, sterility, and contamination. They want written confirmation the drugs are not expired, too.
Again, TDOC has a bad track record of testing its drugs. That’s part of the reason Carruthers’ attorneys and those of other inmates have asked for written confirmation the drugs are not expired, which TDOC has refused to provide.
Expired pentobarbital can “fall out of solution,” meaning that it can stop being a uniform liquid and essentially develop chunks. Injecting drugs with that texture is reported to feel like having little rocks in the veins.
Darrell Hines’ attorneys respond
Darrell Hines is the next Tennessean slated for the death penalty. His legal team is asking Gov. Lee to give him a reprieve — an indefinite delay.
“Mr. Hines’s medically fragile condition creates an intolerable risk that his execution will be yet another gruesome spectacle,” a letter to Lee reads in part. “You can prevent this by granting Mr. Hines a reprieve until the Tennessee Department of Correction can demonstrate it is capable of carrying out executions in accordance with the Constitution, state law, and its own protocol.”
Christa Pike’s attorneys respond
Christa Pike is scheduled to be executed in September. She would be the first woman put to death in Tennessee in about 200 years.
Her legal team is arguing Tennessee is incapable of carrying out her execution competently.
“Tony Carruthers’ botched execution sheds light on what we already knew and have warned the State of Tennessee about for more than a year: TDOC lacks the qualified and trained medical personnel required to ensure prisoners do not face unnecessary pain and suffering as they are executed,” one of her attorneys, Luke Ihnen, is quoted in a press release. “Tennessee must confront this harsh reality or we will face another torturous execution.”
They’re asking the Tennessee Supreme Court to assign a special master to investigate.
That’s a process that the courts employ when people sue the government for failing to carry out its duties, and the court decides there’s enough merit to figure out the breadth of the problem. Right now, a special master is investigating how Tennessee is mismanaging its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. That’s part of a lawsuit the Tennessee Justice Center filed on behalf of several SNAP recipients who unduly lost coverage and suffered financially while their appeals hit delays.
The state made several arguments against the request, most of them on technical grounds.
Attorneys on constitutional review respond
Amy Harwell represents several death row inmates, and is also a lawyer involved in the Burns v. Strada lawsuit that challenges the state’s lethal injection protocol. She and her team are asking for all executions to be put on hold.
They held a press conference shortly after Carruthers’ failed execution.
“We’re here today because we’re calling on Gov. Lee to let the courts decide the Burns case before subjecting anyone else to lethal injection protocol and to the sort of torture that Mr. Caruthers suffer on Thursday,” she said. “To that end, we respectfully ask Gov. Lee to extend the reprieve. To pause all executions until the Burns litigation is complete.”
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