Tony Carruthers receives 1-year stay after ‘outright barbaric’ botched execution in Tennessee
by Brad Reed A Tennessee man set to be executed on May 21 got a temporary reprieve—but not due to any intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court. As reported by The Associated Press, the execution of Tony Carruthers was called off after medical officials struggled to locate a vein during the scheduled lethal injection procedure. After the failed execution, Republican Tennessee Gov. […] The post Tony Carruthers receives 1-year stay after ‘outright barbaric’ botched execution in Tennessee appeared first on Final Call News.
Black News 
by Brad Reed
A Tennessee man set to be executed on May 21 got a temporary reprieve—but not due to any intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court. As reported by The Associated Press, the execution of Tony Carruthers was called off after medical officials struggled to locate a vein during the scheduled lethal injection procedure.
After the failed execution, Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee ordered a one-year stay for Carruthers, who has been on death row for three decades after being convicted of kidnapping and murdering three people in 1996.
Maria DeLiberato, an attorney representing Carruthers, told the AP that she saw her client “wincing and groaning” during the botched procedure, which she described as “horrible” to watch.
DeLiberato, who is also senior counsel at the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project, later issued a statement describing the execution attempt as “outright barbaric,” and reiterated demands for state investigators to examine potentially exculpatory forensic evidence before proceeding with any future attempt.
“We are incredibly relieved Gov. Lee issued a reprieve,” DeLiberato said. “We will also continue to push the governor to use this moment to allow the forensic testing that should have happened long ago. Tennessee cannot continue torturing a man while refusing to answer serious questions about his innocence.”
The ACLU on May 20 had called for the U.S. Supreme Court to block Carruthers’ execution until all potentially exculpatory evidence had been fully examined.
Lucas Cameron-Vaughn, legal director of the ACLU of Tennessee, said the state had a duty to ensure that it had convicted the right man, and he pointed to troubling aspects of the case that should give courts pause before signing off on his execution.
“Mr. Carruthers was forced to represent himself at trial, and now faces death based on flimsy circumstantial evidence, and unreliable witnesses,” Cameron-Vaughn said. “Forensic evidence the state refuses to test could change everything.”
Laura Porter, executive director for U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty, argued that the botched execution shouldn’t just give Carruthers a one-year reprieve, but should push the U.S. to end capital punishment all together.
“Tennessee has effectively made the case against the death penalty,” said Porter. “They forced Tony Carruthers to represent himself at his own capital trial, failed to test DNA and fingerprint evidence and now they have failed to execute him. It is time to end the death penalty.”
Stacy Rector, executive director for Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, described the failed execution as “horrifying but not surprising,” adding that her organization “has sounded the alarm for years about the serious problems with lethal injection and urged our state toward greater transparency so these problems can be addressed.”
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