Amid mounting calls for a death penalty moratorium, Tennessee’s governor says executions will continue

The Tennessee Department of Correction is scheduled to execute Anthony “Darrell” Hines next Thursday.

For weeks, more and more people have been calling for a death penalty moratorium. But yet again, Gov. Bill Lee says that’s not going to happen.

“We live in a broken world where people commit horrible and heinous crimes, and victims and their families are devastated,” he said in a media availability this week. “And it’s a very difficult — those are very difficult situations… The people have chosen the death penalty for those most heinous crimes. It’s my responsibility to make sure that law is carried out.”

His statement was noteworthy for two reasons: Several unrelated groups — defense attorneys, faith leaders, doctors and Republican lawmakers — have called for an investigation into a failed execution in May, and say the state shouldn’t put anyone to death until that’s done. Lee’s statements indicate he does not want to heed that call. And Lee has maintained that during that failed attempt, the Tennessee Department of Correction had followed the lethal injection protocol. That’s a widely disputed conclusion.

This all started three months ago, when the agency tried and failed to execute Tony Carruthers. The medical staff tried to place a typical IV and failed. Per the lethal injection protocol, a doctor then tried to place a central line in a deeper vein. He also failed. After an hour, Lee called into the prison and ordered them to stop.

That cast a spotlight on whether Tennessee is finding qualified medical professionals to serve on the IV team and as the on-site physician.

Mounting concerns

First, defense attorneys for death row inmates asked for a moratorium, investigation and protocol rewrite. Then in early July, nearly a dozen Republican state senators made a similar call. Lee made his first “no moratorium” announcement then.

Last week, a group of about 40 doctors and nurses joined the call. They wrote a letter to Lee, arguing that medical ethics, including those laid out by the American Medical Association, bar participation in the death penalty.

“This means that the health care professionals who agree to take part in Tennessee’s executions are those willing to set aside their professional ethics,” the letter reads in part. “The problems that we have seen, such as in Mr. Carruthers’ case, are the predictable result of working with such unscrupulous actors.”

Then Tennessee’s Supreme Court announced it was taking up a different death row case. Next week, it will hold several days of hearings on whether the process will violate the rights of Christa Pike, who is scheduled to undergo the lethal injection on September 30. The court appointed a special master, which is a formal investigator. There’s a long list of constitutional concerns, most of them centering on Pike’s gender and extensive history of sexual trauma.

But the special master will also consider whether Pike is at risk of undergoing a cruel and unusual punishment because of her diagnosis with a blood disorder. The condition, thrombocytosis, means her high blood platelet count increases the risk of blood clotting, which can cause heart attacks and strokes. Pike’s attorneys argue this condition and her compromised veins could make delivering a lethal injection particularly difficult. Which would mean she’d likely need a central line placed, and would need a doctor on site capable of placing one.

That hearing starts just a few days before Hines is put to death.

Lee’s stance unchanged

Amid all of that, Lee reiterated his position.

“It’s one of the most difficult things we do in this state, but I am committed to making sure that it is done in the way that it should be,” he said.

As for issues lawmakers have raised, Lee said their concerns have been assuaged.

“I discussed that with Senate leadership as a result of their letter, and they’re in agreement,” Lee said.

WPLN reached out to the senators who submitted the letter, and none responded.

Both in his July remarks and this week, Lee defended TDOC and said the agency followed the lethal injection protocol. That’s the written guidebook that governs the state’s lethal injection program. The department writes those rules and enforces them. There is no outside oversight.

Kit Thomas, an attorney for Darrell Hines, spoke about Lee’s assessment on This Is Nashville.

“I’d invite him to re-read the protocol,” she said.

Unsealed court records from late last year have shown Hines’ legal team, including Thomas, interviewed the doctor who later participated in Carruthers’ failed execution.

“And I’d invite him to read the excerpts of the deposition that have been released of Dr. Mark Fowler, where he says… ‘I haven’t set a central line in 13 years,'” she said. “He attempted to do so in May, and he wasn’t able to do it.”

She notes the rules say TDOC has to find a doctor who can perform the procedure.

TDOC has refused to confirm whether the same doctor will participate in Hines’ execution. Unless the courts intervene, that will take place at 10 a.m. next Thursday.

WPLN Power and Equity Reporter Marianna Bacallao contributed to this report.