Workman Executed

The state of Tennessee executed Philip Workman early this morning at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. Workman was sentenced to death for the 1981 shooting of Ronald Oliver, a Memphis police officer.

State Department of Corrections spokeswoman Dorinda Carter says the procedure took 17 minutes.

“The sentence was carried out here at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. Philip Workman was pronounced dead by a physician at 1:38 central daylight time.”

Workman was the first death row inmate to be executed after Governor Phil Bredesen ended a three-month moratorium on the death penalty last week. Bredesen had halted executions in early February to review the lethal injection protocol.

Three of Ronald Oliver’s family members witnessed the execution, but none spoke to reporters gathered outside the prison this morning. Media witness Janice Broach says Workman’s last words were prayers.

“And then he said rather quickly, as if he felt he was about to go under, ‘I commend my spirit into your hand Lord Jesus Christ.’ Then a few seconds later he took deeper breaths and started breathing, he turned his head to the side and then he didn’t move again.”

Prayers were also heard about half a mile down the road from the prison, from a gathering of death penalty opponents and Workman supporters. Stacy Rector is the executive director of the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing. She says there’s evidence that Workman may not have actually killed Oliver.

“It’s just very tragic that we are at this point, and that the system has not worked yet again in really getting to the truth of what really happened.”

Workman’s lawyers filed in state and federal appeals courts, as well as the U-S Supreme Court yesterday—appealing for a stay of execution based on both the revised Tennessee lethal injection protocol and new evidence that have might have proved his innocence. All were denied.

Workman has requested his body not be autopsied, but that request still has to be approved by the district court. That hearing will be held Monday.