On July 20, 2026, attor­neys for death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Darrell Hines, in a new fil­ing, asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to con­di­tion­al­ly stay Mr. Hines’ August 13 exe­cu­tion date because the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC) has refused to iden­ti­fy whether it will use the same physi­cian involved in the state’s failed exe­cu­tion attempt of Tony Carruthers. Pointing to an extreme risk of pain and suf­fer­ing, as evi­denced by Mr. Carruthers’ botched exe­cu­tion, coun­sel for Mr. Hines has asked the state’s high­est court to order TDOC to replace the physi­cian used in Mr. Carruthers exe­cu­tion or to appoint a spe­cial mas­ter to ful­ly con­sid­er Mr. Hines’ Eighth Amendment claim.

“It’s shock­ing that the Tennessee Department of Corrections won’t sim­ply say whether it plans to keep using an exe­cu­tion physi­cian who lacks the required qual­i­fi­ca­tions. We are ask­ing the Tennessee Supreme Court to ensure Darrell Hines is not sub­ject­ed to the same uncon­sti­tu­tion­al treat­ment as in May’s botched execution attempt.”

Kit Thomas, an attor­ney for Mr. Hines.

Attorneys for Mr. Hines have repeat­ed­ly asked TDOC whether the same physi­cian involved in Mr. Carruthers’ exe­cu­tion, Dr. Mark Fowler, would again be respon­si­ble for set­ting IV lines dur­ing Mr. Hines’ exe­cu­tion. TDOC has refused to say whether Dr. Fowler, who lacks hos­pi­tal priv­i­leges and last set a cen­tral IV line more than a decade ago, would par­tic­i­pate in Mr. Hines’ exe­cu­tion. TDOC has claimed that state law pre­cludes them from reveal­ing the exe­cu­tion physician’s iden­ti­ty, includ­ing refus­ing to say whether Dr. Fowler will par­tic­i­pate — despite TDOC pre­vi­ous­ly pub­licly dis­clos­ing Dr. Fowler’s iden­ti­ty. Counsel for Mr. Hines argued that Dr. Fowler’s lack of ade­quate med­ical skills direct­ly con­tributed to the failed attempt to exe­cute Mr. Carruthers, and that if the state con­tin­ues to employ him, Mr. Hines may suf­fer a sim­i­lar botched execution. 

Days before the fil­ing at the state supreme court, the Davidson County Chancery Court grant­ed Mr. Hines’ motion to com­pel TDOC to reveal whether Dr. Fowler is expect­ed to par­tic­i­pate in Mr. Hines’ exe­cu­tion. Chancellor Russell Perkins ruled that Mr. Hines showed it was like­ly that TDOC would con­tin­ue to employ Dr. Fowler for exe­cu­tions and that the state waived the pro­tec­tion of his iden­ti­ty, com­pelling TDOC to pro­vide Mr. Hines with that infor­ma­tion. Chancellor Perkins stayed TDOC’s oblig­a­tion to respond to Mr. Hines’ request until a high­er court reviews the issue. 

In ear­ly July, Governor Bill Lee told mem­bers of the media that the state’s sched­uled exe­cu­tions fol­low­ing Mr. Carruthers’ botched exe­cu­tion would pro­ceed with­out any changes to the lethal injec­tion pro­to­col. Gov. Lee stat­ed that the exe­cu­tion team fol­lowed the prop­er pro­to­col dur­ing the attempt­ed exe­cu­tion and that the prob­lem was locat­ing a suit­able vein for an IV line, rather than with the pro­to­col itself. He not­ed the pro­to­col will stand as it is cur­rent­ly writ­ten and the failed attempt to exe­cute Mr. Carruthers ​“should not affect exe­cu­tions in the future.” In the weeks since Mr. Carruthers’ attempt­ed exe­cu­tion, a group of Republican state sen­a­tors, as well as attor­neys for Mr. Carruthers and oth­er death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers, have pub­licly called for a review of the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. 

Following Gov. Lee’s announce­ment that exe­cu­tions will pro­ceed as sched­uled, coun­sel for Mr. Hines renewed their request to Gov. Lee to grant a reprieve ​“until Tennessee courts ful­ly con­sid­er the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the 2025 Lethal Injection Protocol, includ­ing its relat­ed poli­cies and prac­tices regard­ing selec­tion and reten­tion of exe­cu­tion per­son­nel.” Mr. Hines is among nine pris­on­ers who in 2025 filed a law­suit chal­leng­ing Tennessee’s lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tion pro­to­col based on con­sti­tu­tion­al con­cerns. The men argued that the state’s use of a sin­gle-drug pro­to­col of pen­to­bar­bi­tal cre­ates a ​“high risk of a tor­tur­ous death” and that they face an ​“intol­er­a­ble risk of severe suf­fer­ing due to TDOC’s cur­rent inabil­i­ty to per­form exe­cu­tions in reli­able, con­sis­tent, and appro­pri­ate­ly humane man­ner under the Protocol in light of TDOC’s cul­ture, prac­tices, and poli­cies, as well as the unusu­al amount of dis­cre­tion afford­ed by the Protocol’s vague and unde­mand­ing terms,” accord­ing to the July 20th motion. 

The 2025 Protocol, also not­ed in the most recent motion filed with the Tennessee Supreme Court, replaced lan­guage from ear­li­er pro­to­cols that explic­it­ly required IVs be set by EMTs with ​“a vague, open-end­ed set of qual­i­fi­ca­tions copied near­ly ver­ba­tim from the now-aban­doned lethal injec­tion pro­to­col of [TDOC] Commissioner [Frank] Strada’s for­mer employ­er, the Arizona Department of Corrections.” The motion notes that accord­ing to Dr. Fowler’s October 2025 depo­si­tion relat­ed to the pro­to­col lit­i­ga­tion, he appeared unaware that he would be estab­lish­ing a cen­tral line if nec­es­sary, not­ing that his only role was to ​“cer­ti­fy the death of the inmate.” The motion fur­ther explains that Dr. Fowler did not fol­low appro­pri­ate stan­dard of care in efforts to estab­lish the cen­tral line dur­ing Mr. Carruthers’ exe­cu­tion, and that giv­en these issues, ​“Mr. Hines hoped and expect­ed that TDOC would expe­di­tious­ly announce that it would no longer rely on [Dr. Fowler] for executions.” 

The motion places empha­sis on Mr. Hines’ med­ical fragili­ty fol­low­ing an ischemic stroke in December 2025, in which TDOC failed ​“to pro­vide him with nec­es­sary med­ical care.” Prison staff called for an ambu­lance to trans­fer Mr. Hines to out­side care, but the ambu­lance was turned away when it was deter­mined the prison could per­form a CT scan instead. It took prison staff three weeks to car­ry out the CT scan, which con­firmed Mr. Hines had an ischemic stroke, but he was not pro­vid­ed with appro­pri­ate fol­low up care and has been denied pre­scribed med­ica­tion. He suf­fered anoth­er stroke in January 2026; he col­lapsed and hit his head. As a result, Mr. Hines remains par­a­lyzed and par­tial­ly blind on his left side and has faced severe mus­cle atro­phy from being con­fined to the prison infir­mary. Because of his age and health con­di­tions, coun­sel for Mr. Hines writes it is like­ly he requires a cen­tral line dur­ing exe­cu­tion and ​“TDOC’s reck­less reliance on [Dr. Fowler] would sub­ject him to an intol­er­a­ble risk of severe suf­fer­ing, in vio­la­tion of the Eighth Amendment.” 

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Sources

Sam Stockard, Death row inmate seeks replace­ment of physi­cian in charge of botched exe­cu­tion, Tennessee Lookout, July 21, 2026; Ashley Griffin, Death row inmate asks Tenn. Supreme Court to delay exe­cu­tion unless physi­cian is replaced, FOX 17, July 20, 2026; Li Cohen, Death row inmate seek­ing exe­cu­tion delay unless Tennessee replaces doc­tor from Tony Carruthers’ botched pro­ce­dure, WSMV, July 20, 2026.