Article of Interest: Former Tennessee Execution Official Calls on Governor to Pause Executions in Consideration of the Trauma that the ​“Chaotic” Process Inflicts on Staff

Prompted by the recent botched exe­cu­tion attempt of Tony Carruthers, a for­mer Tennessee exe­cu­tion offi­cial is plead­ing with Governor Bill Lee to pause exe­cu­tions in the state. In his detailed account, Ian Congleton described how his par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions left him with last­ing post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der, anx­i­ety, and depres­sion. In his op-ed in The Tennessean, he ascribed his trau­ma to ​“the chaos sur­round­ing how exe­cu­tions were han­dled and the feel­ing that, unless TDOC [Tennessee Department of Corrections] changed its approach, things would inevitably go wrong”. On May 21, 2026, Tony Carruthers’ exe­cu­tion team failed to estab­lish sec­ondary and cen­tral IV lines as required after over an hour of attempts and more than a dozen punctures. 

After the attempt to exe­cute Mr. Carruthers, the Federal Public Defender’s Office filed a law­suit where they exposed that the physi­cian select­ed by the state to per­form the exe­cu­tion had not placed a cen­tral line in over a decade. Assistant Federal Defender Amy Harwell called on Governor Lee to ​“launch yet anoth­er inves­ti­ga­tion into TDOC’s exe­cu­tion prac­tices to deter­mine how the Department came to rely on such incom­pe­tent, uneth­i­cal, and unqual­i­fied med­ical pro­fes­sion­als”. These sen­ti­ments were lat­er echoed by a group of nine Tennessee Republican sen­a­tors who wrote a let­ter request­ing an inde­pen­dent com­mis­sion to ver­i­fy the department’s ​“readi­ness”. 

Tennessee defend­ers have been at the fore­front of lit­i­ga­tion focus­ing on exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols amidst ongo­ing con­cerns about the state’s exe­cu­tion process. In 2022, an inde­pen­dent 180-page report of Tennessee’s exe­cu­tion prac­tices found the state repeat­ed­ly failed to fol­low its own pro­to­cols between 2018 and 2022. In response, Gov. Lee told reporters, “[W]e will take the time to fix the pro­to­col and to make cer­tain that we don’t move for­ward until everything’s in place.” Then, in 2025, it was wit­ness­es who ini­tial­ly report­ed Byron Black’s exe­cu­tion com­pli­ca­tions, despite the state’s con­flict­ing reports; his autop­sy lat­er con­firmed the wit­ness­es’ accounts. Following this, in January 2026, a coali­tion of news orga­ni­za­tions were grant­ed a tem­po­rary injunc­tion to force wider trans­paren­cy around the IV-inser­tion phase of the state’s execution process.

Mr. Carruthers has been grant­ed a one-year reprieve amidst his ongo­ing suit. Before the attempt­ed exe­cu­tion, his case gar­nered wide-spread atten­tion as there was no inter­ven­tion despite his team’s motion for addi­tion­al DNA test­ing which could prove his inno­cence. He has main­tained his inno­cence for his alleged involve­ment in the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of Marcellos Anderson, Delois Anderson, and Frederick Tucker in 1994. His con­vic­tion relied heav­i­ly on the tes­ti­mo­ny of a jail­house infor­mant, who Mr. Carruthers’ coun­sel lat­er found was paid for his tes­ti­mo­ny. At his tri­al, Mr. Carruthers was forced to rep­re­sent him­self as a result of his tri­al judge’s frus­tra­tion at his repeat­ed dis­missal of his court-appoint­ed coun­sel. In lat­er fil­ings, his coun­sel out­lined how this was a result of ​“his long­stand­ing and well-doc­u­­men­t­ed men­tal ill­ness” and that he has a ​“perva­sive and all-con­­sum­ing obses­sion that a cabal of cor­rupt judges, pros­e­cu­tors, and defense attor­neys have con­spired to secure his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence.” Despite Supreme Court prece­dent that holds that the Eighth Amendment pro­hibits the exe­cu­tion of a per­son who can­not ratio­nal­ly under­stand the rea­son for their exe­cu­tion, his com­pe­ten­cy motion was denied.