Tennessee should keep the death penalty. It should stop pretending lethal injection is the way to carry it out.
On Sept. 30, the state tried to execute Christa Pike, convicted in the 1995 murder of classmate Colleen Slemmer, and failed. Witnesses reported she was still breathing after two doses of pentobarbital. Her lawyers said the team used multiple needles, that veins blew, and that she was taken to a hospital in critical condition. Gov. Bill Lee then halted further executions pending a review. It was the secondfailed attemptthis year. In May, the state called off the execution of Tony Carruthers after more than an hour of trying to establish an IV line.
That is not a protocol with a paperwork problem. It is a method that keeps failing in public,
then generating another round of lawsuits, medical bills, and delay. A botched lethal injection does not cost the price of a drug vial. It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars in the attempt and can run into the millions once the litigation and hospital care are counted. The sentence the jury imposed is still unserved.
Senator Ken Yager and I carried the fix years ago. The Capital Punishment Enforcement Act, Senate Bill 2580 and House Bill 2476, became law in 2014. It requires the electric chair if a court finds lethal injection unconstitutional, or if the commissioner of correction certifies to the governor that an essential ingredient for lethal injection is unavailable. The chair is already lawful in Tennessee. The state should use that backup instead of rewriting a chemical protocol that has now failed twice in one year.
The other option is the firing-squad bill Senator Frank Niceley and I carried in 2023, House Bill 1245 and Senate Bill 1152. As amended, it would have let a person sentenced to death elect a firing squad by written waiver instead of lethal injection or electrocution. The estimated setup cost was about $50,000, a one-time expense for the facility and training. That is a fraction of what this week’s failed execution will cost in legal fees and medical care, and it does not have to be paid again every time a protocol is rewritten.
A firing squad does not depend on a pharmacy, a vein, or a drug a supplier may refuse to sell. Done correctly, it is over in seconds. It is effective, efficient and more humane than an hour on a gurney while an IV fails. The House Finance subcommittee set that bill aside over cost, and the session ended with it behind the budget. Fifty thousand dollars was treated as too much. The failed injection this week will cost far more, and the sentence remains unserved.
None of this relitigates guilt. The death penalty is constitutional. Tennessee juries still impose it for the worst murders. The obligation that follows is to carry out the sentence. Use the electric chair when lethal injection is not possible, as the Yager-Powers law already requires, or pass the Niceley-Powers firing-squad bill. Fifty thousand dollars once is cheaper than another botched night at Riverbend.
State Rep. Dennis Powers represents the 36th House District, which includes Campbell, Union and parts of Claiborne County. He is the Full Chairman of the Public Acts Committee in Tennessee House of Representatives. He also serves on the Business and Utilities Subcommittee, the State and Local Government Committee, Commerce Committee, Department and Agencies Sub-committee and Calendar and Rules Committee.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Drop the needle: Tennessee should use the chair or firing squad | Opinion
