Tennessee halted the scheduled execution of death row inmate Tony Carruthers on May 21 after prison officials were unable to establish the IV lines required for the lethal injection procedure, according to state authorities.
Carruthers had been set to die at 10 a.m. for his conviction in the 1994 murders of Delois Anderson, Marcellos Anderson and Frederick Tucker in Memphis.
Prosecutors said Carruthers worked alongside brothers James and Jonathan Montgomery in a plot targeting Marcellos Anderson, whom authorities identified as a major Memphis drug dealer. Investigators alleged the victims were kidnapped, taken to a cemetery and buried beneath the grave of Dorothy Daniels.
Court testimony stated the suspects dug beneath the existing grave before strangling or shooting the victims and burying them underneath it. A medical examiner later testified that the victims may have still been alive when they were buried.
Jonathan Montgomery later led investigators to the burial site and implicated Carruthers and his brother in the killings, according to court records. He died by suicide before the case went to trial.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said execution staff successfully established one IV line but were unable to secure the required backup line despite repeated attempts.
“The team continued to follow the protocol, but could not find another suitable vein,” the department said in a statement. “The team attempted to insert a central line pursuant to the protocol, but the procedure was unsuccessful. The execution was then called off.”
Attorneys for Carruthers said the procedure lasted approximately 80 minutes. Maria DeLiberato, senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Capital Punishment Project, said Carruthers experienced significant pain during the failed attempt and described the incident as “torture.”
Casey Stubbs, director of the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project, criticized the state’s handling of the execution attempt.
“Permitting Tony Carruthers’ execution without ordering DNA testing was a grave injustice,” Stubbs said. “This injustice turned barbaric when Tennessee’s efforts to set an IV line for the lethal drugs failed and the executioners continued to press forward anyway with the botched execution.”
Following the halted execution, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee granted Carruthers a one-year reprieve. Supporters and attorneys for Carruthers, who has maintained his innocence for decades, welcomed the decision and renewed calls for DNA testing in the case.
Carruthers’ legal team has long argued that prosecutors relied heavily on witness testimony and that little physical evidence directly tied him to the killings.
