130,000 People Urge Clemency for Tony Carruthers in Advance of Tennessee’s Planned Execution

Absent court action, Tony Carruthers is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Tennessee on May 21, 2026, despite untest­ed DNA evi­dence, an inno­cence claim, and seri­ous men­tal ill­ness con­cerns. On May 18, faith lead­ers, civ­il rights advo­cates and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers marched to the state capi­tol to urge Governor Bill Lee to grant Mr. Carruthers clemen­cy or stay his exe­cu­tion to allow addi­tion­al DNA test­ing, deliv­er­ing a peti­tion with over 130,000 sig­na­tures. Gov. Lee announced on May 19 that he has no plans to inter­vene and stop the exe­cu­tion. Mr. Carruthers’ case has drawn nation­al atten­tion as his sched­uled exe­cu­tion date nears, includ­ing from celebri­ty Kim Kardashian, who urged her 345 mil­lion Instagram fol­low­ers to call Gov. Lee’s office to press for the DNA test­ing, and from Demetrius Minor, the Executive Director of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty.

“Before the state takes a life, they should be required to answer a sim­ple, foun­da­tion­al ques­tion: Did they get the right per­son? In this case, Tennessee is refus­ing to find out.”— Demetrius Minor, Executive Director of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty 

Convicted and sen­tenced to death for his alleged involve­ment in the kid­nap­ping and mur­ders of Marcellos Anderson, Delois Anderson, and Frederick Tucker in 1994, Mr. Carruthers has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained his inno­cence, and no foren­sic evi­dence has ever con­nect­ed him to the crime. At his tri­al, pros­e­cu­tors relied almost entire­ly on the tes­ti­mo­ny of a jail­house infor­mant who was paid for his tes­ti­mo­ny. DNA col­lect­ed from the crime scene has nev­er been com­pared to anoth­er sus­pect in the case. In April, coun­sel for Mr. Carruthers asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to order DNA test­ing that they argue could prove his inno­cence; the request was denied on May 20.

“Over the past few years, the Tennessee leg­is­la­ture has passed laws that pre­serve DNA evi­dence in cap­i­tal cas­es and pro­vide mech­a­nisms for courts to order such crit­i­cal test­ing, espe­cial­ly when lives are at stake.” — Reverend Stacy Rector, Executive Director of Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (TADP)

Mr. Carruthers was also forced to rep­re­sent him­self at his tri­al after the judge in his case became frus­trat­ed with his repeat­ed dis­missal of court-appoint­ed coun­sel. In fil­ings by Mr. Carruthers’ cur­rent attor­neys from the Tennessee Federal Public Defender’s Office they attribute his actions at tri­al ​“to his long­stand­ing and well-doc­u­ment­ed men­tal ill­ness,” includ­ing a ​“per­va­sive and all-con­sum­ing obses­sion that a cabal of cor­rupt judges, pros­e­cu­tors, and defense attor­neys have con­spired to secure his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence.” At tri­al, Mr. Carruthers did not ask to rep­re­sent him­self and repeat­ed­ly request­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tion after the judge refused to appoint new coun­sel. According to the ACLU, as a result, Mr. Carruthers’ tri­al ​“was so filled with errors due to his forced self-rep­re­sen­ta­tion that on appeal the court found that his co-defen­dant deserved a new tri­al.” On May 7, Tennessee’s Supreme Court reject­ed a chal­lenge to his exe­cu­tion based on U.S. Supreme Court cas­es Ford v. Wainwright (1986) and Panetti v. Quarterman (2007), which held that the Eighth Amendment pro­hibits the exe­cu­tion of a per­son who can­not ratio­nal­ly under­stand the rea­son for their exe­cu­tion. His attor­neys appealed the denial to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to accept the case on May 19. If exe­cut­ed, Mr. Carruthers will be the first Tennessee defen­dant to rep­re­sent him­self at tri­al and receive the death penal­ty in over 100 years.

Over the past fif­teen years, use of the death penal­ty in Tennessee has become increas­ing­ly rare, and racial­ly and geo­graph­i­cal­ly con­cen­trat­ed. From 2010 to 2014, six peo­ple were sen­tenced to death in Tennessee, but only three peo­ple have been sen­tenced to death since 2015. Seven of these nine death sen­tences were for Black defen­dants, like Mr. Carruthers. Black indi­vid­u­als com­prise half of all those cur­rent­ly under a death sen­tence but only 17% of the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion in Tennessee. Shelby County, where Mr. Carruthers was sen­tenced to death, accounts for just under a third (32%) of all death sen­tences in Tennessee since 1974 and just over half (51%) of the cur­rent death row pop­u­la­tion in the state. Six out of ten death sen­tences in Tennessee have been reduced to less than death, com­mut­ed, dis­missed, or pardoned.

For every five exe­cu­tions in Tennessee, there has been one exon­er­a­tion. Officials in Tennessee have sched­uled the exe­cu­tions of four indi­vid­u­als in 2026, start­ing with Mr. Carruthers on May 21 — putting Tennessee on pace to be the third high­est exe­cut­ing state in the coun­try in 2026, behind Florida and Texas. Among the four is also Christa Pike, the only death sen­tenced woman in Tennessee, who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on September 30, 2026. Ms. Pike would be the first woman to be exe­cut­ed in the state in over 200 years.

The cost of lethal injec­tion drugs has also been a source of con­cern in Tennessee in recent years. According to Mr. Carruthers’ attor­neys with the Federal Public Defender’s Office, ​“TDOC recent­ly spent $625,000 on exe­cu­tion-relat­ed ser­vices — most like­ly for the drugs that will be used to exe­cute Mr. Carruthers,” cit­ing to an email from TDOC’s Commissioner to the Comptroller of the Treasury, obtained through a pub­lic records request. Between 2017 and 2025, Tennessee offi­cials spent $600,000 to obtain lethal injection drugs.

As of the time of this post­ing [May 20], Mr. Carruthers still has an appeal pend­ing in the Federal District Court of Western Tennessee.

Source: Death Penalty Information Center, Pam Quanrud, May 20, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde

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