Officials in Tennessee called off the execution of Tony Carruthers, after trying and failing to set an intravenous line for more than an hour.
Tennessee does not allow media witnesses to observe efforts to find a vein to deliver the deadly dose of drugs.
Maria DeLiberato, a lawyer representing Carruthers, said she witnessed him “wincing and groaning” on the gurney as officials repeatedly stabbed him with needles, calling it “horrible” to watch.
In the run-up to the execution, it emerged that the state had spent $650,000 on execution-related expenses – likely buying manufactured pentobarbital on the black market, violating distribution controls intended to prevent medicines being diverted to death chambers.
Carruthers is at least the seventh person to survive an attempted execution in the modern era, according to our analysis. He was granted a one year reprieve of execution by Tennessee Governor Bill Lee.
Reprieve US Deputy Director Matt Wells told Reuters news agency: “Tennessee has been hellbent on killing Tony Carruthers with no transparency or public accountability.
In this rush to execute in absolute secrecy, states like Tennessee cause extreme pain and suffering time and again. Lethal injection is touted as a humane, ‘medical’ method of execution; bloody and prolonged execution attempts like this one expose the brutal reality.”
