Mark Fowler, according to a deposition, had not placed a central line in a patient for more than a decade when he attempted to put one in Carruthers Around 11 a.m. Thursday morning in the execution chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, a medical doctor stepped in and attempted to place a central IV line in Tony Carruthers’ chest. By that point, the prison staff had spent some 30 minutes trying unsuccessfully to insert a backup IV line that would allow them to proceed with the lethal injection. According to Carruthers’ attorney Maria DeLiberato, who was in the room, after asking a staff member to attempt inserting a line through Carruthers’ jugular vein, the doctor moved on to the central line, which is identified as the last resort in Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol .
Toomaj Salehi, a former political prisoner and protest artist, has condemned the death sentences handed down to four defendants in the “Ekbatan” case, calling them “unjust and against humanity.” Writing on his official account on the social media platform X, he stated: “I am writing these words at a time when freedom of expression and media freedom, which we never truly had to begin with, have been suppressed in the most severe manner possible under the pretext of war, while poverty rains down upon the people from both earth and sky.”