Tennessee set to execute Anthony Darrell Hines

Barring any last-minute interventions, the Tennessee Department of Correction will execute Anthony Darrell Hines by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville Thursday morning.

This week, two courts had the opportunity to halt the execution: the federal court in Middle Tennessee and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Gov. Bill Lee announced Tuesday he personally would not prevent the execution.

“After deliberate consideration of Anthony Darrell Hines’ request for clemency, and after a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and do not plan to intervene,” he said in a written statement. The U.S. Supreme Court has not granted a stay or reprieve.

This will be the first execution since the department botched its attempted execution of Tony Carruthers in May.

The issue there was establishing IV and central line access. While Carruthers had no major medical conditions, Hines has several. In the year leading up to now, he suffered multiple strokes and has been paralyzed on his left side.

That has led his muscles to waste away. Muscles keep veins stable and visible; muscle loss will likely make finding a vein harder, his legal team has argued.

His attorneys also say his left arm and hand are clenched and spasmodic. They asked a federal court to stay the execution to keep the Tennessee Department of Correction from forcing his hand open and his arm straight for the execution.

The Criminal Case

On March 3, 1985, Katherine Jean Jenkins, a 54-year-old motel maid and grandmother, was raped, robbed, and murdered at the CeBon Motel off I-40 in Kingston Springs, Cheatham County, Tennessee. She was found wrapped in a sheet in a room she had been cleaning; she had multiple deep stab wounds to the chest, other cuts, defensive wounds, and a penetrating knife wound to the genital area. Money, her wallet, keys, and car were taken.

At the time, Hines was traveling by bus from North Carolina toward Kentucky and was carrying a hunting knife. He checked into the motel. Trial evidence included witnesses who linked him to the crime scene and described him fleeing in the victim’s bloodstained car while wearing a bloodstained shirt, family members who heard him admit to stabbing someone at the motel, the victim’s wallet, found near the spot where he abandoned her car, and knife marks on the walls of his motel room, which he himself identified as such.

Hines was convicted of first-degree felony murder and sentenced to death. The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the conviction but remanded for resentencing due to instructional error; a second jury again imposed death (finding aggravating factors including prior violent felony and especially heinous/atrocious/cruel murder involving torture/depravity and commission during rape/robbery/larceny). The sentence was affirmed.

Hines has long maintained innocence and raised claims of ineffective assistance of counsel (including failure to investigate an alternative suspect). Post-conviction and federal habeas proceedings followed for decades.

In 2020 the Sixth Circuit granted relief on ineffective-assistance grounds, but the U.S. Supreme Court reversed in 2021 (Mays v. Hines), holding that the Sixth Circuit had improperly disregarded the substantial evidence of guilt under the AEDPA standard. Subsequent proceedings concluded without further relief, and the Tennessee Supreme Court set the August 13, 2026, execution date in 2025 after determining standard appeals were exhausted.

Hines selected a last meal (fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, coleslaw, corn, fries, biscuits, a chicken sandwich, chocolate chip cake, and sweet tea).

Victim’s family members have expressed that the long delay has been painful and support carrying out the sentence.

Developments can change rapidly with a pending U.S. Supreme Court application on the day of a scheduled execution. Official TDOC or court announcements would provide the definitive real-time status.

The execution is scheduled for 10 a.m.

Source: wpln.org, Catherine Sweeney; DPN, AI, August 12, 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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