Tennessee | Governor Lee stands by lethal injection protocol after botched execution

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — Tennessee Governor Bill Lee is standing by Tennessee’s protocol for lethal injection following the botched execution of Tony Carruthers.

In May, Carruthers’ execution was called off after medical personnel failed to find a vein for lethal injection. At the time, they said the first vein was found quickly, but that they could not establish a backup line as required by the state’s lethal injection protocol. The governor intervened, granting a one-year reprieve.

6 News asked Lee about it, and he chalked up what happened as a fluke, stating that it should not happen again.

“As we have observed, everything about the protocol of the death penalty was carried out appropriately. And in that situation, the Department of Correction did exactly what they’re supposed to. I decided to suspend the execution. I have the authority to do that,” said Lee.

He continued, “But the protocol itself, the process for the death penalty in this state, which is the law of Tennessee that the people have decided, still stands as it should. The Department of Correction did exactly what they should, and it should not affect us in the future. […] Those victims of the most heinous crimes in our state deserve to have justice there. The people of Tennessee have spoken about that, so I see no reason why further executions should not happen.”

His remarks come after eight Republican senators sent him a letter calling for an independent review of the death penalty protocol before the state carries out another death sentence. In the letter, lawmakers called the execution attempt “a failure of the State of Tennessee to carry out a lawful sentence of its own courts.”

In May 2025, Oscar Smith became the first prisoner to be executed under the state’s new protocol.

Tennessee’s next scheduled execution is slated for Anthony Hines on August 13. Hines was convicted of the fatal stabbing of 54-year-old Katherine Jean Jenkins, a motel maid west of Nashville, in 1985.

Source: wate.com, Hannah Moore, July 7, 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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