Attorneys for Tony Carruthers, who was scheduled to be executed Thursday morning in Tennessee, have filed an emergency stay of execution, claiming corrections has been unable to set an IV line to administer lethal injection drugs.
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“The Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) has been unable to obtain intravenous access to administer lethal injection to Mr. Carruthers,” according to the emergency motion filed in state and federal courts in Tennessee Thursday. “Repeated attempts to obtain access at alternate IV sites have been unsuccessful.”
“The State of Tennessee is currently torturing a man who maintains his innocence in the name of justice. This is not how our system is supposed to work,” said Melanie Verdecia, counsel for Tony Carruthers alongside the ACLU.
Carruthers was the first person scheduled to be executed in Tennessee this year.
On Wednesday, lawyers for Carruthers said they were worried that the state was using expired drugs for the execution. Last month, his lawyers filed a motion for post conviction DNA testing o have unmatched fingerprints and other DNA evidence in the case tested against an alternate suspect.
“Mr. Carruthers’ lawyers have repeatedly sought assurances from TDOC that expired drugs would not be used in the execution on Thursday. TDOC has refused to provide any such explicit assurance,” the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Middle District of Tennessee said in a statement.
Tennessee ended a three-year pause on executions last year. The moratorium came after it was discovered the state was not properly testing lethal injection drugs for purity and potency.
An independent review later found that the drugs used on seven inmates in 2018 had been fully tested.
NBC News has reached out to the Tennessee Department of Corrections and Governor Bill Lee for comment on the emergency motion to stay the execution. The Tennessee attorney general’s office has declined to comment.