NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The planned execution of Tony Carruthers in Tennessee was called off Thursday after officials struggled to find a vein for more than an hour, a lawyer present said.
Maria DeLiberato, an attorney for Carruthers, said she saw him “wincing and groaning” while officials attempted to find a vein, calling it “horrible” to watch.
In a written statement, the Tennessee Department of Corrections said medical personnel had quickly established
a primary IV line but were unable to find a suitable vein for a backup line as required by the state’s execution protocol. Efforts to insert a central line also failed, and officials called off the execution.
Carruthers' lawyers asked a federal court and the Tennessee Supreme Court on Thursday to put his execution on hold, saying continuous attempts to access a vein constitute “cruel and unusual punishment.”
States have repeatedly had to call off executions because of such challenges. In Idaho in 2024, medical team members tried eight times to establish an IV line to execute Thomas Creech, one of the nation’s longest-serving death row inmates, before calling it off; Idaho Gov. Brad Little subsequently signed a law making firing squad the state’s primary method of execution.
In Alabama, Gov. Kay Ivey paused executions for several months after officials called off the lethal injection of Kenneth Eugene Smith in 2022 — the third time since 2018 Alabama had been unable to conduct executions due to problems with IV lines.
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. He was forced to represent himself at trial after repeatedly complaining about court-appointed attorneys and threatening to harm several of them.
There was no physical evidence tying Carruthers to the killings, and he was convicted primarily on the basis of testimony from people who claimed to have heard him confess to or discuss the crimes.
They include a man who was later revealed to be a police informant and told media he was paid for his testimony. A co-defendant, James Montgomery, was originally sentenced to death along with Carruthers but was later resentenced and released from prison in 2015, according to court filings.
Authorities said Marcellos Anderson was a drug dealer, and Carruthers was trying to take over the illegal drug trade in their Memphis neighborhood. Carruthers' attorneys have said their client's “paranoia and delusions” prevented him from being able to cooperate with court-appointed counsel, but the judge viewed this behavior as willful.
The Tennessee Supreme Court said on appeal that Carruthers’ actions before the trial jury were offensive and self-destructive but the situation in which he found himself was one of his own making.
Carruthers' attorneys have tried to show that he is incompetent to be executed. They claim in court filings that Carruthers believes the government is bluffing about executing him in order to coerce him into accepting a plea deal that exists only in his mind. That way, Carruthers believes, the government can avoid paying him what he thinks are millions of dollars it owes him. He is convinced that his own attorneys are part of a conspiracy against him and refuses to even speak with them, according to court filings.
The number of executions in the U.S. surged from 25 in 2024 to 47 last year, driven by a sharp increase in Florida. That state carried out 19 executions in 2025, up from one the previous year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. So far this year, four states have executed 13 people, and 11 other executions are scheduled including one Thursday evening in Florida.
It’s not unusual to see several executions over a short period of time. Last year, four people were executed over three days in March in Oklahoma, Florida, Louisiana and Arizona. Another five people were executed over a week in October in Arizona, Mississippi, Missouri, Florida and Indiana, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Tennessee began a new round of executions last year after a three-year pause following the discovery that the state was not properly testing lethal injection drugs for purity and potency.
An independent review later found that none of the drugs prepared for the seven inmates executed in Tennessee since 2018 had been fully tested. The state attorney general’s office also conceded in court that two of the people most responsible for overseeing Tennessee’s lethal injection drugs “ incorrectly testified ” under oath that officials were testing the chemicals as required.
