PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Message to the people of Tennessee, and to all other American's: You can make this botched execution the last execution ever in your country. Learn from us. We ended capital punishment in Canada after - and perhaps because of - the brutal botched execution of Arthur Lucas at Toronto's Don Jail, on December 11, 1962. Author Robert L Hoshowsky described the botched back-to-back execution and its aftermath, in his book "The last to Die: Ronald Turpin, Arthur Lucas, and the end of capital punishment in Canada. Per Hoshowsky: "What happened next is the stuff of nightmares. Turpin and Lucas never heard the end of the word salvation. The hangman sprung the trap, the platform falling beneath their feet with a deafening crash that echoed throughout the room as they plummeted to their deaths. No one who was at the hangings revealed what happened that night for many years, and newspapers at the time were not given the full story. "The hanging was bungled. Turpin died clean. But Lucas' head was torn off. It was hanging just by the sinews of the neck. There was blood all over the floor. The hangman had miscalculated his weight. What a way to die," said (Salvation Army Chaplain Cyril) Everitt in an interview published just before his own death many years later..... Toronto homicide detective Jim Crawford who attended the double hanging that cold December night. "Everybody was taken aback by the spray of blood that was literally like a water pipe had burst, and the walls were sprayed with blood." Howshowsky continues: " The Coroner's report made no mention of Lucas almost losing his head. Doubts about Lucas' conviction lingered even to 1976 - the year capital punishment was abolished. The deaths of Ronald Turpin and Arthur Lucas may have marked the end of capital punishment in Canada;" Fortunately, Arthur Lucas survived the botched execution, although one can imagine the horror he must feel at the possibility of undergoing another one at the end of the governor's reprieve. This is not about guilt or innocence. Although, that said, Tony Carruthers has protested his innocence from the start, and has been denied the post-conviction drug-testing which he hopes will show that he is innocent. It is rather about a barbaric punishment, worthy of the middle ages, that has no place in a civilized state. Heed the words of Amnesty International: "Tennessee’s botched attempt to execute Tony Carruthers today spotlights how the death penalty truly is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. Nobody should be treated this way. Instead of issuing a one-year reprieve from execution, we call on Governor Lee to end this cruelty and commute Tony Carruthers death sentence."
See May 2, 2014 post on 'The Last to Die' at:
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QUOTE OF THE DAY: "“This was a tortured, botched execution. I mean, there’s no question about it,” Carruthers’ ACLU attorney Maria DeLiberato told the media. “By the grace of God, he’s still alive. But they tortured him, trying to find a vein."
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Throughout that process, media witnesses were held in the viewing room adjacent to the execution chamber. With the lights off and the curtain closed, they could not see the extended struggle to establish IV lines. Some of the activity in the execution chamber could be heard, however. At one point, before the doctor on the execution team attempted to place the central line, he could be heard telling Carruthers that he was about to administer the local anesthetic lidocaine. Minutes later, in an exchange she later confirmed, DeLiberato could be heard questioning if the doctor was qualified to perform the procedure. “I am qualified,” he said. “Do your job, sir,” said Riverbend Maximum Security Institution Warden Kenneth Nelsen, according to DeLiberato.
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Just after 11:20 a.m., almost an hour into the executioners’ struggle to place IV lines, Carruthers could be heard groaning in pain. “You all should have been in that room with me,” DeLiberato told the media afterward. “If the state of Tennessee is going to execute its own, there has to be full and complete transparency. There was no transparency here and this botched execution showed why there must be.”
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STORY: "Tony Carruthers’ Execution Delayed After Doctor Unable to Administer IV,"" by reporters Mikeie Honda Reiland, Steven Hale and Steve Cavendish," published by The Nashville Banner, on May 21 2026.
SUB-HEADING: "Gov. Bill Lee issues one-year reprieve after emergency filing with Tennessee Supreme Court."
GIST: "Tony Carruthers’ death sentence was stopped, temporarily, at the last minute on Thursday.
As the state of Tennessee attempted to prepare Carruthers for execution by lethal injection, the doctor contracted by the Tennessee Department of Correction could not find a vein for a backup IV to administer the dose of pentobarbital. According to an emergency filing with the Tennessee Supreme Court, protocols called for putting in a central line, but the doctor was “not qualified” to perform the procedure.
“Shortly after the motion was filed, Governor Bill Lee issued a reprieve,” the court posted minutes later.
The reprieve is for one year.
According to TDOC, an attempt to insert a central line “pursuant to the protocol” was unsuccessful.
“This was a tortured, botched execution. I mean, there’s no question about it,” Carruthers’ ACLU attorney Maria DeLiberato told the media. “By the grace of God, he’s still alive. But they tortured him, trying to find a vein.”
Sitting outside the prison after the execution was called off, DeLiberato told reporters that state executioners spent more than an hour trying to successfully insert the secondary IV line — according to protocol — including attempts on his left arm, feet, hand and jugular vein before attempting a central line in his upper chest. By the time that failed, DeLiberato said, Carruthers was “in agony.” Still, she said the execution team made one more attempt to insert a line, this time in his right shoulder, before the execution was called off.
Throughout that process, media witnesses were held in the viewing room adjacent to the execution chamber. With the lights off and the curtain closed, they could not see the extended struggle to establish IV lines. Some of the activity in the execution chamber could be heard, however. At one point, before the doctor on the execution team attempted to place the central line, he could be heard telling Carruthers that he was about to administer the local anesthetic lidocaine. Minutes later, in an exchange she later confirmed, DeLiberato could be heard questioning if the doctor was qualified to perform the procedure.
“I am qualified,” he said.
“Do your job, sir,” said Riverbend Maximum Security Institution Warden Kenneth Nelsen, according to DeLiberato.
Just after 11:20 a.m., almost an hour into the executioners’ struggle to place IV lines, Carruthers could be heard groaning in pain.
“You all should have been in that room with me,” DeLiberato told the media afterward. “If the state of Tennessee is going to execute its own, there has to be full and complete transparency. There was no transparency here and this botched execution showed why there must be.”
The Banner is part of a media coalition suing the state for greater access in and around executions, including having a pool reporter witness the preparations for execution. A chancery court ruled in favor of greater transparency, but the Tennessee Supreme Court blocked that order on appeal.
The dramatic events capped a week of activity in state and federal courts and included a last-minute denial by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to stop the execution.
The state received further scrutiny this week about the quality of the lethal injection drugs. Prison officials refused to confirm whether or not the pentobarbital they planned to use to execute Carruthers was expired.
After a 1996 trial, Carruthers received three death sentences for the 1994 kidnapping and murder of three people: Marcellos Anderson, Anderson’s mother Delois and Anderson’s teenage friend Frederick Tucker. In 2000, co-defendant James Montgomery received a new trial, after which he pleaded guilty and received a 27-year sentence. Montgomery was released in 2015.
Since the trial, in which Carruthers represented himself, he has maintained his innocence. Before the trial, he clashed with six appointed defense attorneys, after which the judge declined to appoint a seventh. Attorneys have argued that severe mental illness has prevented him from working with defense attorneys and preparing an effective defense in court. Carruthers’ attorneys said that during the trial, the state relied on the testimony of a paid informant who later recanted his testimony, saying prosecutors had coached him.
Carruthers’ attorneys exhausted potential paths to relief. Attorneys argued he is legally incompetent to be executed due to psychotic delusions. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, 130,000 people signed a petition asking Lee to postpone the execution until DNA and fingerprint analysis could be performed on still untested crime scene evidence, including the victims’ fingernails. On May 20, Lee declined to grant clemency. The ACLU also filed lawsuits in state and federal courts requesting a stay of the execution until the completion of DNA testing and fingerprint analysis, but the Tennessee Supreme Court and U.S. District Judge Eli Richardson denied the petitions within the last week.
On May 20, the ACLU applied directly to the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution, once more requesting DNA and fingerprint testing. That appeal was denied on Thursday morning.
“Can this really be happening?” wondered Carruthers’ sister, Dr. Tonya Carruthers Hervey, at a public plea for her brother’s clemency on May 18 at the Tennessee State Capitol. “Has this been happening for so long? And why, when we have the technology to have gotten all of our questions answered a long time ago?”
Hervey recalled a brother who made money in the summer cutting lawns, then took his three siblings to Kroger to buy snacks with his earnings.
Carruthers was set to be the 11th person killed by the state since Tennessee reinstated its death penalty in 2018. Anthony Darrell Dugard Hines, Christa Pike and Gary Wayne Sutton are all scheduled to be executed before the end of 2026.
Following the litigation surrounding Byron Black’s execution in 2025 — in which the Tennessee Supreme Court overruled and reprimanded the trial court for its ruling — the high court has taken a more immediate role in execution litigation. An amended rule now requires “collateral litigation” related to the “method or timing” of an execution to be filed directly with the Tennessee Supreme Court. Pike’s legal challenge to her execution is currently pending."
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;
