Lawyers for death row inmate Tony Carruthers are concerned Tennessee may use expired lethal injection drugs for his upcoming execution. The state has not confirmed whether the drugs are within their expiration dates.
Key points
Tony Carruthers is on death row in Tennessee.
Lawyers are concerned about the use of expired lethal injection drugs.
Carruthers was convicted of multiple murders in 1994.
The Tennessee Department of Correction has not confirmed drug expiration status.
Mentioned in this story
Tony CarruthersMarcellos AndersonDelois AndersonFrederick TuckerTennessee Department of CorrectionGovernor Bill Lee's office
Lawyers for a Tennessee death row inmate say they are concerned the state may be planning to use expired lethal injection drugs at his execution on Thursday, amid growing concern across the country as states work to keep most information about their drugs secret.
Tony Carruthers’s lawyers twice asked the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) last month whether it had secured the appropriate drugs for his execution date and to ensure the drugs had not expired.
Assistant Attorney General John W Ayers’s response did not directly answer, but said the department will comply with its lethal injection protocol, which includes regular inventory of the drugs to monitor expiration dates.
Carruthers, 57, was sentenced to death after being found guilty of the 1994 kidnappings and murders of Marcellos Anderson, his mother Delois Anderson and Frederick Tucker.
The Tennessee Department of Correction declined to answer on Wednesday when asked by The Associated Press news agency whether the drugs they plan to use to kill Carruthers are expired. Governor Bill Lee’s office did not immediately respond to a similar inquiry.
Federal Public Defender Amy Harwell said in an email that expiration dates reflect when a drug can no longer be safely relied upon to obtain the desired result.
“In the execution context, this may mean a slow, lingering death without a reliable loss of consciousness, as the body painfully and fitfully shuts down,” Harwell wrote.
A mugshot of Tony Carruthers
This Tennessee Department of Correction photo shows inmate Tony Carruthers [File: Tennessee Department of Correction via AP Photo]
Public opposition to executions has made it difficult for prisons to obtain execution drugs, among the lingering issues for those who use lethal injection. Some states have been forced to speed up executions or stop them entirely due to expiration dates on drugs.
In South Carolina, executions were on hold for 12 years while the state struggled to obtain drugs. They were able to get them only after the state passed a shield law that kept the supplier’s identity secret.
Q&A
What concerns do lawyers have about Tony Carruthers's execution?
Lawyers are worried that Tennessee may use expired lethal injection drugs during his execution.
What was Tony Carruthers convicted of?
Tony Carruthers was sentenced to death for the 1994 kidnappings and murders of Marcellos Anderson, Delois Anderson, and Frederick Tucker.
How has the Tennessee Department of Correction responded to inquiries about the execution drugs?
The Tennessee Department of Correction has not confirmed whether the drugs for Carruthers's execution are expired and stated they will comply with their lethal injection protocol.
What is the execution date for Tony Carruthers?
Tony Carruthers is scheduled for execution on Thursday.
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Tennessee has argued in court that its shield extends to revealing expiration dates. Just before the December execution of Harold Nichols, Tennessee Deputy Attorney General Cody Brandon offered instead to provide a declaration “attesting that the chemicals to be used in Mr Nichols’ execution will not expire before his execution and have not expired”, according to a transcript of the proceedings.
“The fact that TDOC was willing to provide such assurances to Mr Nichols, but not Mr Carruthers, raises serious concerns that TDOC is, in fact, intending to use expired drugs,” Harwell wrote in a May 18 follow-up to Ayers’s letter.
Arkansas and Idaho have faced challenges
In 2017, Arkansas’s then-Governor Asa Hutchinson issued death warrants for eight prisoners on the state’s death row in an effort to beat the clock on a batch of lethal injection drugs that were set to expire. The state executed four of the men, but four others were granted stays.
Arkansas has not had any executions since then, in part because of the difficulty in obtaining drugs.
A group of Texas inmates in 2023 unsuccessfully tried to stop the state from using drugs they alleged were expired and unsafe. Prison officials denied their claims and said the state’s drug supply was safe.
Lawyers for Idaho’s death row inmates raised similar concerns in 2024, when the state planned to take a second try at executing Thomas Creech after the first attempt was botched.
The Federal Defender Services of Idaho told a federal judge that prison officials apparently failed to even check the expiration date of the execution drugs before obtaining a death warrant for Creech in October 2024. Nine days later, the drugs were returned to the supplier because they were expired, according to court documents. A new Idaho law has changed the state’s primary execution method to firing squad in part because of the difficulty of getting lethal injection drugs.
Tennessee’s problems with execution drugs
Tennessee has a history of problems with its execution drugs. In 2022, Oscar Smith came within minutes of being executed before Tennessee Governor Bill Lee issued a surprise reprieve that revealed the state’s lethal injection drugs were not being properly tested for purity and potency. Executions were on hold for two years to allow for an independent investigation into the problems.
The state attorney general’s office was also forced to concede in court that two of the people most responsible for overseeing Tennessee’s lethal injection drugs at the time “incorrectly testified” under oath that officials were testing the chemicals as required.
Tennessee released a new lethal injection process in December 2024 and restarted executions in 2025. Several death row inmates have sued over the new protocols, arguing that the Correction Department did not follow the recommendations from the investigation.
Meanwhile, the new process has not been completely smooth. When Byron Black was executed by lethal injection in August, he said he was “ hurting so bad”. Prison officials have offered no explanation for what might have caused the pain.
