Capital defense lawyer Maria DeLiberato met her client last March.
Tony Carruthers was scheduled to face the death penalty last month for the kidnapping and killing of three people in Memphis.
Upon meeting and evaluating Carruthers’ case, DeLiberato noticed the hallmarks of a wrongful conviction, as DeLiberato wrote for The New York Times.
There was no physical evidence that connected Carruthers to the crime, said DeLiberato.
“I was also shocked to learn that Mr. Carruthers was forced to represent himself at trial after several lawyers asked to be removed from his case, claiming that he was too difficult to work with.”
Pressed for time, DeLiberato began building her case in defense of Carruthers. They requested that the state of Tennessee test fingerprints and DNA from the crime scene. Yet despite her efforts, she wrote, the state did not cooperate.
Tennessee has a history of failing to protect inmates during their execution. An independent investigation commissioned by Tennessee’s Gov. Bill Lee found that between 2018 and 2022, the state consistently neglected its protocol while executing its inmates.
The morning of Carruthers’ execution arrived, and DeLiberato assumed the role of a witness.
“My responsibility was to remain present while the state killed my client, and to refuse the comfort of looking away,” she wrote.
DeLiberato notes how Tennessee prohibits journalists from witnessing the intravenous line insertion process, which she said is the first major step of the lethal injection protocol.
She started taking notes, carefully adding time stamps. Seven minutes in, execution practitioners were alternating between his left and right arms, failing to find a vein for his IV. DeLiberato described the energy inside the execution chamber as tense.
After 30 minutes, a doctor entered. The team tried inserting the IV in Carruthers’ feet and failed; he was in pain.
The doctor then asked if anyone knew how to insert an IV through the jugular vein, an invasive procedure performed by puncturing the neck, chest or groin. DeLiberato quickly objected but was ignored. She wrote that the doctor inside the execution chamber admitted in a deposition he hadn’t performed a jugular insertion in over a decade and didn’t have the privileges to perform one in any hospital in the country.
“That moment revealed something deeply unsettling about the machinery of executions in America. The states that still execute people insist that executions are controlled, humane and medically precise,” she said.
The doctor began by injecting Carruthers with lidocaine, then jabbed into his chest with a scalpel or large needle, according to DeLiberato.
Carruthers was audibly in pain as the doctor continued. All the while, DeLiberato reassured her client that she was doing everything she could to help.
An hour later, the doctor stopped and said he was not able to set a central line, but the execution team continued searching for a vein.
“I could see blood coming out of the puncture wounds. Mr. Carruthers moaned while the executioners moved frantically around him,” wrote DeLiberato.
A phone rang inside the chamber and the warden answered.
DeLiberato later learned the execution was postponed by Gov. Bill Lee.
DeLiberato noted Carruthers’ appearance; he was pale and trembling. Approximately 90 minutes had passed since the execution began.
Carruthers said about the doctor, “He was hurting me and he knew he was hurting me.”
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