Several new details about Tennessee’s recent executions came to light this week, including the price of the drugs and issues with executions leading up to Christa Pike’s catastrophic failed one.
The state has paid more than a million dollars for lethal injection drugs since 2023, The Tennessean reports. Secrecy laws shield nearly every detail except for the dollar figure. So it’s unclear how many doses were purchased or where corrections officials bought the drugs.
It’s also unclear where the drugs were created. There are two options. The first, by a pharmaceutical company in a commercial facility, which requires the medications to be diverted out of the tightly regulated monitoring system for controlled substances. Or, it could have been mixed at a compounding pharmacy. Those are labs that undergo more lenient inspections than other pharmacies and make copies of commercial drugs, which are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.
Defense attorneys for death row inmates filed a motion with the Davidson County court on Thursday that details problems in each of the executions initiated under the 2025 lethal injection protocol.
Those attorneys filed a lawsuit arguing that the new protocol was unconstitutional shortly after it was made public last year. The state has been fighting to get the case dismissed. One of the state’s arguments has been that concerns about misadministration were speculative.
Defense attorneys say that it is no longer speculation. Two of the failed execution attempts, including Christa Pike’s, have drawn international attention to their problems. But even injections that did end in death had complications.
For example, the department put Bryon Black to death in August 2025. But EKG strips later showed his heart was beating steadily for several minutes after the doctor pronounced him dead. It’s unknown when he actually died.
The motion filed this week is asking the court to let attorneys re-write their complaint. That way, it can incorporate facts from the long list of troubled executions under the new protocol.
The state, meanwhile, is arguing the case should be thrown out because of a law change at the statehouse this year. In 2018, lawmakers made it easier for residents to sue the state government. Specifically, it let people to challenge laws before they’re harmed by them, instead of making them wait until they could prove they’ve already been harmed.
Defense attorneys say the botched executions show harm.
The legal team for Pike is undergoing a similar process. They filed a lawsuit arguing the protocol was illegal back in January. Similarly, it raised concerns about how Pike’s rights might be violated by the process. Now, they want to submit an updated complaint that explains the harm she experienced in her execution.
Her team and the state are fighting about the timeline on that. Pike’s lawyers say re-writing the complaint will take months. Attorneys representing the Department of Correction want the cutoff to be Nov. 8 — 30 days from when Pike was released from the hospital.
The issue was scheduled for a hearing on Friday, but the judge canceled it and said she would consider the issues without an oral argument.
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