Tennessee Death Row Prisoners Ask Governor Lee to Halt Scheduled Executions While Courts Assess Constitutionality of New Lethal Injection Protocol

On April 10, 2025, attor­neys for Tennessee death row pris­on­ers Oscar Smith and Byron Black called on Governor Bill Lee to issue a tem­po­rary reprieve in their cas­es. In their let­ter, the attor­neys ask Gov. Lee ​“to pause all exe­cu­tions in Tennessee until March 1, 2026,” to per­mit a pend­ing case chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s new pen­to­bar­bi­tal lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dure to be decid­ed. In late December 2024, the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC) com­plet­ed a mul­ti-year review of its lethal injec­tion pro­to­col and announced the state would use pen­to­bar­bi­tal, a bar­bi­tu­rate, in a sin­gle-drug exe­cu­tion pro­to­col for future lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions. In March 2025, a group of nine death row pris­on­ers filed a law­suit in Davidson County Chancery Court chal­leng­ing the state’s use of pen­to­bar­bi­tal in its revised lethal injec­tion pro­to­col, argu­ing it cre­ates a ​“high risk of a torturous death.” 

Attorneys for Mr. Smith and Mr. Black com­mend­ed Gov. Lee’s ini­tial pause on exe­cu­tions in May 2022 after an April 2022 deci­sion to call off the exe­cu­tion of Mr. Smith less than an hour before it was set to take place: ​“After learn­ing that mem­bers of your depart­ment of cor­rec­tion had failed to fol­low the exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols, it was unques­tion­ably the right thing to pause all exe­cu­tions and seek an inde­pen­dent review.” The attor­neys asked Gov. Lee to ​“do the next right thing” by paus­ing exe­cu­tions until the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty issue is resolved. The hear­ing is sched­uled to begin on March 1, 2026. Counsel for Mr. Smith and Mr. Black have made efforts to expe­dite the hear­ing process, but the court has said it can­not begin before 2026. Mr. Smith is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on May 22, 2025, and Mr. Black on August 5, 2025.

Tennessee law does not grant the Chancery Court, which is hear­ing the lethal injec­tion chal­lenge, the author­i­ty to issue a stay of exe­cu­tion, so it can­not ensure Mr. Smith and Mr. Black are not exe­cut­ed ahead of its con­sid­er­a­tion of their chal­lenge. However, Gov. Lee has the author­i­ty to issue a reprieve to both men.

Both Mr. Smith and Mr. Black are par­ties to the law­suit chal­leng­ing the state’s use of pen­to­bar­bi­tal, which alleges that the drug is ​“a poi­son that has been shown through recent evi­dence to pose a high risk of a tor­tur­ous death, par­tic­u­lar­ly if obtained, stored, han­dled, and/​or admin­is­tered incor­rect­ly.” According to the lawsuit’s alle­ga­tions, TDOC’s ​“cul­ture of non­com­pli­ance, when com­bined with the risk-prone nature of pen­to­bar­bi­tal poi­son­ing as a method of exe­cu­tion, cre­ates a high risk that a per­son receiv­ing a lethal injec­tion admin­is­tered by TDOC will be tor­tured to death.”

Gov. Lee’s May 2022 pause on exe­cu­tions came with his order to con­duct an ​“inde­pen­dent review” of the state’s lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tion pro­to­col to address the ​“tech­ni­cal over­sight” that led him to halt Mr. Smith’s exe­cu­tion. Gov. Lee retained for­mer U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton to con­duct that review of the pro­to­col. In a report released in December 2022, Mr. Stanton found that between 2018 and 2022, TDOC repeat­ed­ly vio­lat­ed its own require­ment to test the exe­cu­tion drugs for poten­cy, steril­i­ty, and endo­tox­in con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. Testing for endo­tox­ins was per­formed in just one of eight pre­pared dos­es of lethal injec­tion. In response to Mr. Stanton’s report, Gov. Lee announced four spe­cif­ic actions his admin­is­tra­tion would imple­ment: lead­er­ship restruc­tur­ing with­in TDOC, appoint­ment of a per­ma­nent TDOC com­mis­sion­er, pro­to­col revi­sion, and com­pre­hen­sive train­ing review relat­ed to updat­ed pro­to­cols and operational modifications.

The attor­neys’ let­ter request­ing a reprieve notes that ​“except for fir­ing two staff mem­bers, it does not appear that the depart­ment imple­ment­ed the safe­guards [Gov. Lee] direct­ed” and that ​“there is no indi­ca­tion that the cul­ture with­in the depart­ment has changed.” In fact, the attor­neys allege ​“the new and abbre­vi­at­ed pro­to­col sug­gests the oppo­site.” The old 2018 pro­to­col that relied on three-drugs could not effec­tive­ly ​“safe­guard against non-com­pli­ance and abuse” and was 100 pages long. The new pen­to­bar­bi­tal pro­to­col, which is just 44 pages, includes less than a full page of ​“con­clu­so­ry and vague” infor­ma­tion sur­round­ing the pro­cure­ment, han­dling, and stor­age of lethal injec­tion drugs. ​“Simply put, the new pro­to­col is but a shad­ow of its pre­de­ces­sor. This is not a the­o­ret­i­cal con­cern,” accord­ing to the attor­neys for Mr. Smith and Mr. Black.

Faith lead­ers and vio­lence pre­ven­tion advo­cates joined coun­sel for Mr. Smith and Mr. Black dur­ing a press con­fer­ence to call on Gov. Lee’s inter­ven­tion. ​“Governor Lee is a man of deep faith and strong moral char­ac­ter who has rec­og­nized the pro­found flaws in Tennessee’s sys­tem of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment,” said Rev. Dr. Kevin Riggs, Franklin Community Church pas­tor. ​“I believe by grant­i­ng a reprieve to these men, the gov­er­nor will ​‘act just­ly’ and ​‘love mer­cy,’ just as the Bible teach­es us to do.”