Tennessee is scheduled to execute Tony Carruthers on May 21, but advocates for the man on death row want untested DNA samples from a crime scene studied before then.
Carruthers was convicted in the 1994 kidnapping and murder of three people in Shelby County. He is the first of four people scheduled to be executed in 2026 in Tennessee, following three executions in 2025.
According to a recent ALCU court filing, there was no forensic evidence placing Carruthers at the scene and no witnesses. A paid informant said Carruthers had confessed to him, recanted in a television interview, and then went back to his original story after being threatened with a perjury charge.
Some DNA samples were tested at the time, and none matched Carruthers. The ACLU argues DNA technology has evolved, and its lawsuit also notes that several samples were never tested.
One of Carruthers’ co-defendants claimed a different man — who was later murdered in 2002 — committed the 1994 killing. None of the samples have been run against that man’s DNA. The ACLU filing says the other man’s fingerprints and DNA are on file in the medical examiner’s office.
The ACLU submitted a court request for testing on Carruthers’ behalf.
Continuing coverage: Death penalty in Tennessee
Other organizations, including the Tennessee Innocence Project, have been calling for that testing.
“DNA is the gold standard of forensic science,” said Jason Gishner, executive director. “You can ask scientists that. You can ask courts that. You can ask our Tennessee Supreme Court that. They’ve said it.”
Re-testing DNA with new technology has already been freeing prisoners in the state. Gishner cited 10 exonerations in the last five years.
Ray Krone co-founded Witness to Innocence, which represents people who have been exonerated while on death row. He said he has been in the same position as Carruthers.
Krone was convicted of killing a woman, even though the DNA evidence from the scene didn’t belong to him. It was later tested again.
“It came back with a match to a man that lived right down the road, who had priors for assaulting children and women,” he said. “I was subsequently released after 10 years, 3 months and 8 days … He made a plea bargain and is serving a life sentence.”
He said his story isn’t rare.
“When I was released that day, I was the 100th person in America,” he said. “One hundred mistakes had been made at that time in 2002 — sentenced people to death for something they didn’t do.”
He said he lives in Tennessee now and is asking his Gov. Bill Lee to commute Carruthers’ sentence. Without intervention, Carruthers will be put to death on May 21.
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