Death Penalty News

A physician uses a cartoon lawsuit to question the burdens US execution law places on condemned prisoners. As a physician, I have spent a career on the far side of a fact pattern I did not choose. This is the moment when something prescribed or administered goes wrong inside a body that trusted it not to. I have seen that more than once. It would be more comfortable to cast myself as the one who gets hurt. It is more honest to say I am the supplier. The drug, the dose, the device, and the airway all enter the body through me. In the cartoon, I am not the coyote. I am Acme.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WBMA) — Alabama has executed Jeffery Lee, nearly three decades after he was convicted in the 1998 killings of two people during a pawnshop robbery in rural Dallas County. Lee, 49, was put to death by lethal injection Thursday evening at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. His execution came three months after a federal judge blocked Alabama's plans to execute him using nitrogen gas. He was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m. Central Time, according to the office of Governor Kay Ivey. 

Georgia prison physician Carlo Musso was one of the rare doctors who’d openly talked about his role in lethal injections . After he stepped away from that work last decade, the state has made it difficult to determine who replaced him. The role Musso held is so controversial that more than a dozen states have made it illegal to disclose the names of those involved with lethal injections. Georgia is among them. The state, through its Lethal Injections Secrecy Act, has gone to great lengths to hide the details around how it carries out lethal injections.

Alabama plans to execute Jeffery Lee on Thursday via lethal injection after a down-to-the-wire decision by the federal courts halted his death by nitrogen hypoxia in June. In response, Gov. Kay Ivey set the 30-hour window for the execution to be carried out by lethal injection beginning at 12 a.m. on Thursday, September 17, and expiring at 6 a.m. on Friday, September 18. Barring any further court action, the execution will take place at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.

The court’s decision came a little more than two months after Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita asked the justices to schedule Weisheit’s execution. State attorneys argued Weisheit had exhausted his state and federal appeals, had no active stay of execution, and could lawfully be put to death. The inmate’s attorneys opposed setting a date, saying they needed more time to pursue available legal proceedings and possible executive clemency. The defense additionally pointed to public records that it said showed the Indiana Department of Correction lacked the drugs needed to conduct an execution and had no lawful source from which to obtain them.

For a decade, Alabama death row inmate Jeffrey Lee has been clear that he does not want to be executed by lethal injection . But that is what awaits him on September 17 . He faces that prospect because the state has been enjoined from using nitrogen hypoxia , the alternative execution method he preferred, to put him to death. Having failed to show that its nitrogen hypoxia protocol is constitutionally acceptable, Alabama wants a do-over to force Lee to die by lethal injection as a result of its own failure. It should not get one. Alabama should only be able to put Lee to death if it can fix nitrogen hypoxia’s constitutional defects.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has refused to scrap hanging as the method of executing the death penalty, but said the issue can be looked at again if new scientific or medical evidence shows that another method causes less pain. The court also said the Centre can set up an expert panel to examine whether another method of execution would reduce pain and protect the dignity of death row prisoners. Why was a plea filed against hanging as a method of execution? The petition was filed by senior advocate Rishi Malhotra, who challenged the law that provides for hanging as the method of executing a death sentence, according to a LiveLaw report. Section 354(5) of the Code of Criminal Procedure says that a person sentenced to death should be "hanged by the neck till he is dead." Malhotra's plea sought to replace hanging with other methods, including lethal injection, shooting, electrocution or a gas chamber. He argued that hanging can cause prolonged pain and suffering and violates...

Oklahoma has carried out 1 of 3 executions set for the same day in the United States in another sign of the resurgence of the death penalty in the country.  Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 13, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.  He was put to death by lethal injection for the murder of his common-law wife in 2003 at their Oklahoma City home. He admitted to police he shot her twice during an argument.  Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, did not fight for his life, stunning his attorneys in July when he told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board that he didn't want clemency. "It's time for me to pay for what I did," he said. 

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.

When people think about capital punishment, their attention is usually fixed on its two most visible moments, when a death sentence is handed down and an execution is conducted. But behind the scenes, many other moving parts must be in place for the death penalty system to function. Among the most important of them is the protocol that lays out the steps that must be followed when the state puts someone to death. If the protocol is sloppy or deficient, it will likely lead to problems in carrying out death sentences. Not surprisingly, problems with execution protocols are especially likely to arise when a state adopts a new execution method.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Questions surrounding Tennessee’s failed execution of death row inmate Tony Carruthers remain unanswered after the Tennessee Department of Correction declined to respond to a lawmaker’s request for details about what went wrong. Carruthers’ execution was stopped in May after medical staff spent more than an hour attempting to establish IV access for the lethal injection but were not able to find a vein. Following the failed execution, State Rep. Jody Barrett (R-Dickson) requested answers from TDOC about what changes, if any, have been made to prevent a similar incident from happening again. Barrett gave the department until Monday, July 20, to respond.

A death row inmate is asking the Tennessee Supreme Court to replace the physician in charge of a botched execution in May or appoint a special master to consider his claim that a scheduled Aug. 13 execution could be unconstitutional. In a Monday Chancery Court filing, attorneys for inmate Darrell Hines cited the risk of extreme pain and suffering if the state uses the same doctor who was in charge when the state tried and failed to execute Tony Carruthers in May. The move comes after a Davidson County judge required the Department of Correction to reveal whether the same physician will perform Hines’ lethal injection.

A formal complaint has been filed with the Tennessee Department of Health regarding the conduct of a physician involved in the failed execution of death row inmate Tony Carruthers on May 21, 2026. The complaint, submitted by Carruthers’ sister, Tonya Hervey on July 15, alleges that Dr. Mark Walton Fowler engaged in unethical medical practices during the aborted procedure. The state’s attempt to execute Carruthers was halted after execution team members spent over an hour unsuccessfully attempting to establish a backup intravenous (IV) line. While a primary line was established, the team’s failure to secure the secondary access required by state protocol led Governor Bill Lee to grant a one-year reprieve.

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.

The state becomes the first in the U.S. to make the firing squad the standard method of capital punishment Idaho is opening a new phase in the administration of capital punishment in the United States, returning to the firing squad as the default method of execution. The decision reintroduces a system that has been abolished or abandoned in most of the country and is now being reorganized through a formal and highly structured framework. The new death penalty protocol State authorities have begun recruiting volunteer law enforcement officers to take part in executions. The operational model includes three primary shooters assigned to carry out the execution, two alternates, and one operations coordinator. All participants will remain anonymous, known only to the prison warden and deputy warden.

Tony Carruthers, a Memphis man on death row, is one of hundreds of people in the U.S. whose executions did not go as planned When the Tennessee Department of Corrections botched Tony Carruthers’ execution, it wasn’t surprising to Austin Sarat. He’s been researching and writing about “state killings” for decades. “Of all of the methods of execution used in the United States over the last 140 years, lethal injection has the highest rate of being botched,” said Sarat, a professor of law and politics at Amherst College. He said an execution is botched when it deviates from standard operating procedure or official legal protocol.

The protocol that took effect in 2025 sheds new light on Tony Carruthers’ botched execution, when Dr. Mark Fowler spent nearly an hour trying, and failing, to place a secondary IV line Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol adopted a year and a half ago appears to include reduced training in IV placement. That’s the part of the process prison staff failed to complete last month before aborting the execution of Tony Carruthers. Filings from ongoing litigation over the protocol show concerns about the executioners’ training and qualifications aren’t new. 

BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) — The firing squad will become the primary method of execution in the State of Idaho starting July 1, 2026. Those in support of the change argue it's a more humane and efficient method, while some are more skeptical. Idaho is now one of five states to authorize the firing squad as a means of execution. Other states include Mississippi, Oklahoma, Utah and South Carolina. Where Idaho differs, it's the only state to make it the primary method.

Group of eight wants hold on death penalty until problems solved A group of Tennessee Republican senators is urging the governor to commission an independent review of a failed execution and correct any problems before the state attempts another execution. In a demand for “full transparency and accountability” from the Department of Correction, eight GOP senators sent a letter Monday to Gov. Bill Lee requesting that he initiate a review of the botched execution of Tony Von Carruthers on May 21. The letter obtained by the Lookout is signed by Senator Majority Leader Jack Johnson of Franklin, Sen. Ferrell Haile of Gallatin, Sen. Joey Hensley of Hohenwald, Sen. Becky Massey of Knoxville, Sen. Richard Briggs of Knoxville, Sen. Tom Hatcher of Maryville, Sen. Dawn White of Murfreesboro and Sen. Ken Yager of Kingston.

Correction officials confirmed Westville can accommodate firing squad executions as lawmakers, the governor, and the U.S. Justice Department push for changes to protocols. As Indiana inches toward what could be its fourth state execution since resuming capital punishment, prison officials confirmed the state’s next correctional complex is already equipped for an execution method Hoosier lawmakers have yet to authorize. The Indiana Department of Correction confirmed to the Indiana Capital Chronicle that the new Westville Correctional Facility, now nearing completion, is designed to accommodate both lethal injection and firing squad executions. Indiana law currently allows only lethal injection.