Stockard on the Stump: Tennessee senators blame dehydration in botched execution

Dehydration was a primary factor in a botched execution that forced Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to call off and postpone a man’s death penalty for a year, a state senator told the Lookout.

Republican Sen. Ferrell Haile of Gallatin, who signed a letter seeking an investigation of the failed execution of Tony Carruthers and postponement of executions, said this week after receiving more information about Carruthers’ physical state he is satisfied with the governor’s plan to move ahead with an Aug. 13 execution of Darrell Hines and others scheduled this year.

Haile and seven other Republican senators sent Lee the letter in July amid questions about the qualifications of the physician overseeing the state’s executions after the Department of Correction’s death penalty team poked and prodded Carruthers for roughly an hour, creating what witnesses called a bloody mess as they tried to find veins to insert IVs to administer lethal drugs.

In spite of continued questions about the physician’s qualifications and whether he should be performing executions at all, Haile said he agrees the state should go ahead, using its protocol.

“We have found out more information since then. It wasn’t the protocol as much as it was other factors that came into play, that the inmate was dehydrated and … wasn’t in a position to deal with that in that point in time. I feel pretty comfortable with where we’ve gotten to,” Haile said.

Asked if the Department of Correction’s death penalty team will have to ensure the next person up for execution is properly hydrated, Haile said, “I assume so, yes.”

Tennessee GOP senators seek review of botched execution

Public Defender Kit Thomas, the federally-appointed attorney for Hines, told the Lookout this week there is no “public proof” that Carruthers was dehydrated. The state refused to allow a physician to examine Carruthers immediately after the botched execution, she said, and efforts in court to have him checked have been fruitless.

“There is no transparency around whether Mr. Carruthers was dehydrated,” Thomas said.

Thomas added that dehydration doesn’t explain the failure of the execution team to insert a central line, calling that “the failure of an unqualified, underskilled physician” and saying it’s “ingenuous” to compare the possible dehydration of Carruthers to the physical ailments of Hines.

The Tennessee Supreme Court Thursday denied Hines’ request for an order requiring the state to reveal whether it plans to use Dr. Mark Fowler for his execution and refused to appoint a special master to consider his Eighth Amendment claim against cruel and unusual punishment and postpone the execution.

Hines’ attorneys responded by sending a letter to the state attorney general, the governor and warden of Riverbend Maximum Security Facility asking the Department of Correction to disclose test results of the drugs is plans to use for his execution.

The state has declined to say whether Fowler will oversee the Hines execution even though a Davidson County Chancery Court ordered the state to make its plans clear. Hines, convicted of first-degree murder in 1985, is partially blind, extremely thin and paralyzed on his left side after suffering two strokes, raising concerns that the execution will have trouble accessing a central line, his attorneys with the federal Public Defenders Office say.

Tennessee governor gives reprieve to inmate after botched execution 

Yet Lee, who called off and postponed Carruthers’ execution as he lay on the gurney, said this week he is confident in the state’s lethal injection process and denied a request by Republican senators to independently investigate the circumstances surrounding the failed execution and postpone lethal injections until problems are resolved. Lee said he is committed to making sure “the law is carried out justly and legally.”

“I take it very seriously and have in every case and will in every case going forward,” Lee said this week. “I discussed that with Senate leadership as a result of their letter, and they’re in agreement.”

Stating the obvious, Lee said the Department of Correction is responsible for executing people on death row. Yet Correction Commissioner Frank Strada came to Tennessee from Arizona in 2022, shortly after overseeing three executions there that had IV access problems similar to Tennessee’s.

Thomas said the Arizona and Tennessee protocols contain “virtually identical provisions” on IV access, including allowing the execution team to practice without performing an IV catheterization. Previous protocol allowed a team of emergency medical technicians to handle IV access.

Lee, who previously put executions on hold because the state failed to follow its lethal drug protocol, said it is “legally crucial” that the state abide by its guidelines. He pointed out that the Carruthers execution wasn’t botched because of protocol, only because the doctor couldn’t establish IV access. He did not mention dehydration when questioned by reporters this week.

Considering Carruthers had been on death row for decades for a 1994 kidnapping and triple murder, it seems they would have had time to make sure his water level was up to par, raising further questions about the state’s ability to carry out an execution.

Raising other questions 

Other than the failure to make sure Carruthers had been drinking enough water, a major part of the state’s protocol falls short, mainly because it requires a doctor to participate in the execution, potentially violating the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm, according to Sen. Richard Briggs, one of eight Republicans who signed the letter to Lee.

Briggs wasn’t consulted by the governor but said it is clear the physician in charge of overseeing the execution should have been able to handle the IV. Briggs, a retired U.S. Army physician, said he’s established thousands of IVs in difficult situations and pointed out that the doctor in charge of the team hadn’t inserted an IV in more than a decade and had done it only a few times. 

“I don’t know how you can fix that because ethically physicians aren’t even supposed to be involved in executions other than to declare someone’s dead,” Briggs said. He said he favors coming up with another way to carry out the death penalty.

The governor didn’t talk to Briggs or to several of the senators who sought the investigation, only to some members in leadership positions.

Sen. Tom Hatcher of Maryville, chairman of a Senate corrections subcommittee, said Lee didn’t talk to him but that he was satisfied with the governor’s efforts to look into the situation after talking to Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, who told him that Carruthers was dehydrated. Johnson didn’t respond to questions from the Lookout.

That leads us to believe the governor’s ultimate decision is based almost entirely on hydration, not on the ability of the execution team. 

We understand the concept of delivering justice for the families who were victimized by heinous crimes.

But another factor that has to be taken into consideration is the idea that people have been put to death for crimes they didn’t commit. One study finds that if all death row inmates remained sentenced indefinitely, at least 4.1% would be exonerated.

More than 200 people who were sentenced to death since 1973 have been exonerated, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which also has plenty of stories about people who were executed before people started changing their stories and evidence started falling apart. Official misconduct and perjury or false accusations are the most common causes for wrongful death penalty convictions.

Three people in Tennessee have been exonerated after being convicted of capital crimes and sentenced to death.

The missing “stones”

Campaign TV ads are the highlight of nearly every election, and this year’s are no exception, with one group identifying congressional candidate state Rep. Johnny Garrett as pro-LGBTQ+ pride and using artificial intelligence to put him in a rainbow shirt and U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn sending a cease-and-desist letter to the American Exceptionalism Institute for “defaming” her. Garrett and Blackburn both handily won their primaries Thursday.

But this year’s winner is Rep. Todd Warner, who came up with a “stones” ad at the tail end of this year’s primary. And we’re not talking about the Rolling Stones.

“Do you know what’s missing in Washington? Stones,” Warner says in the ad, in which he contends “it shouldn’t take stones this size to do the right thing.”

The ad shows Warner operating a backhoe to move large chunks of limestone as he talks about deporting “every illegal alien” and passing the SAVE America Act in his race against state Sen. Brent Taylor, who received President Donald Trump’s endorsement.

Warner, who was soundly beaten by state Sen. Brent Taylor in Thursday’s primary, told the Lookout the ad was shot on his farm but said he hasn’t broken any law, even though his mining operation is caught up in a quarrel with neighbors and the Marshall County Board of Zoning Appeals, which said he can’t operate a quarry on his farm. The state also sent Warner a violation notice after finding he was running a mining operation without a permit required by the Clean Water Act. That was contradicted by another inspection in which the state said it didn’t understand the nature of the operation and was uncertain about whether a federal permit was necessary.

Warner said the stones in the campaign ad were dumped there by Marshall County, which is building a water treatment plant across the road.

“We have no issues at all. We’ve done nothing wrong. There’s a lot of garbage out there this fake news puts out there on social media,” he said.

Warner contends he never asked for a quarry but rather dug a lake to water crops.

Gone but not forgotten

House Majority Leader William Lamberth hired former state Rep. Matthew Hill’s Birchwood Consulting to handle text messaging polls in state races, the Tennessee Journal reported. Republicans doled out $37,500 for the work.

Lamberth told the Journal Hill was able to do the quickest turnaround for the best price.

Hill, who lost in the 2020 primary but still has a brother, Rep. Timothy Hill, in the legislature, was a supporter of former House Speaker Glen Casada before his speakership crashed and burned.

Hill also boasted six years ago about netting $400,000 for a nonprofit organization to help children that came from a $4 million slush fund Casada put in the budget to dole out favors. That caught people’s attention, but Casada defended the fund at the time, saying it was a line item in the legislative budget that anyone could see. He was absolutely correct. It just didn’t pass the smell test as he tried to shore up support to stay in the speaker’s seat.

“Life is so strange when it’s changin’, yes indeed / I’ve seen the hard times and pressure’s been on me.” *

*”Gimme Back My Bullets”, Lynyrd Skynyrd