Tennessee’s lethal injection chemicals haven’t been tested properly for years, according to third party review

Gov. Bill Lee is changing the way Tennessee carries out its executions, following an independent review of the state’s lethal injections.

In April, Gov. Lee paused the state’s executions hours before Oscar Smith was scheduled to be killed by lethal injection, citing concerns with the drugs themselves.

The investigation, conducted by former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton, found that the state’s lethal injections in the last few years were not tested for endotoxins, and sometimes failed — or were not subjected to — potency tests. According to the review, it was a miscommunication issue between the testing pharmacy and the state that led to the oversight.

Lee announced Wednesday that the Tennessee Department of Correction will make staffing changes at the leadership level and hire a permanent commissioner in the new year. It will be up to the new TDOC leadership to revise the state’s lethal injection protocol — a method of execution that has long been scrutinized. People on death row have opted to be killed in the electric chair or by firing squad, out of fear that lethal injection would be more painful.

The Tennessee Supreme Court will be responsible for setting new execution dates after the governor’s reprieves expire. Currently, the state has no executions scheduled for 2023.

‘Troubling findings’

The new findings were described as “troubling” and “shocking” by Kelley Henry, chief of the Capital Habeas Unit within the Nashville Federal Public Defender’s Office

“What we learned today is that secrecy in our state’s execution process breeds a lack of accountability, sloppiness, and a high risk of horrifying mistakes,” she wrote in a statement.

Advocacy groups praised the independent report, but expressed ongoing concerns.

Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty called the lethal injection protocol “irreparably flawed.” Other groups questioned the state’s ongoing use of resources to create a method of execution and said they remained skeptical.

“We remain deeply concerned about Tennessee’s execution process,” wrote Gloria Sweet-Love, president of the Tennessee State Conference of the NAACP. “This report has given us a glimpse into an execution process plagued by human error, deception, and inconsistency that mirror many of the same problems that infect the death penalty as a whole, including the racial bias that infects the whole system.”