Writes Maria DeLiberato, in "In a Tennessee Execution Chamber, I Saw Chaos" (NYT).
The chaos ended because the governor acted, delaying the execution for another year. It's already been a long time. Carruthers was sentenced to death in 1996.
June 1, 2026
"Tennessee bars journalists from witnessing the intravenous line insertion process, the first major step of the lethal injection protocol."
"I noted the time we entered the chamber. After about seven minutes of searching for a vein, they were able to insert an IV into his right arm. Then, following protocol, they also tried to set an IV in his left arm. That failed, so they moved on to his left hand, poking him over and over again. Cycling through needles, the executioners communicated mostly through tense glances and head shakes.... About 30 minutes in, a doctor entered and... told the executioners to remove Mr. Carruthers’s socks and search for veins in his feet.... After that didn’t work, the doctor asked whether anyone in the room knew how to gain access to Mr. Carruthers’s jugular vein. Then, the doctor decided to attempt to establish a central line... puncturing the neck, chest or groin.... Eventually, the doctor said he was not able to set a central line.... By then, an hour had passed. Still, the execution team continued probing his body for another access point....The state’s constructed illusion of precision had collapsed, revealing something far more chaotic and brutal...."
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64 comments:
Maybe the state should not be in the execution business?
Maybe sending the message that life is cheap, and women and children, workers and prisoners are disposable too is not creating the American society worth leaving to your grandchildren, kept spouses, gay boys, or pets? Cmon lady. Hang it up and pass the torch already...
Cheering death does not become you.
Meh, I don't really care that much about someone getting poked with a needle too many times. Though I think executions should be done by firing squad. It is fast and certain. Also, it is sufficiently and undeniably violent. Which sets an appropriately serious tone for the State ending someone's life. I also think it would push back against a problem with the lefty zeitgeist. Which is some sort of quasi-hedonism, one tenet of which is that no one should have to experience any negative feelings or emotions if there is way to not experience them.
The solution is obvious. We need to outsource our lethal injection executions to the Canadian businesses that operate their medically assisted suicides.
Just sloppy just give him lead poisoning
Old Testament justice demands blood sacrifice... the ladies demand it. Stoning too.
If this guy’s veins are this bad, then he doesn’t have long to live anyway. That, or the people involved are incompetent.
I agree with Howard, if this was Canada, they would have no problem finding a vein and taking him out in minutes, as long as they could claim it was his choice and not a punishment for his crimes.
Epstein managed with bedsheet/towel!?
Couldn't they have asked a nurse. Any nurse, really.
Why are these things that are so common our everyday lives so fraught and complicated when it's a death row prisoner?
30 years. What is even the point?
Why not just commute the sentence to life and be done with it? He has already essentially been through an execution now.
Can the ability to get a vein be manipulated by becoming dehydrated? Why should we believe his attorney's interpretation of events? I believe the basic fact that the execution did not take place, but I am skeptical about the particulars.
They'll probably have robot executioners pretty soon.
Optimus will just come into your cell and turn your head all the way around like Linda Blair.
Firing squad. States and the feds are bringing it back. It's the hottest old thing that's new again. It is really hard to eff up. That said Boyd's right, if you're going to wait 3 decades that's morally orthogonal to timely justice.
I've known several people whose veins are notoriously hard to "find." And I've known one nurse who was always the one called in when patients' veins couldn't be accessed because she had particular skill. This "example" of "the state's" "chaos and brutality" (all quotation marks intentional) is just an anecdote, the experience of one individual.
I have mixed feelings about capital punishment. But having trouble administering a lethal injection because sometimes veins are hard to access is not a reason to rule it out. I'm certain that this same situation happens, behind closed doors, with MAID and other assisted suicide protocols, as well as with euthanasia of pets.* After all, presumably most of those who receive MAID are very sick, right?
* When I was looking into home euthanasia services for our dog with lymphoma, who's still chugging along by the way, the organization described part of its protocol as "First, your pet will be taken to a private area to install a port. Then, your pet will be returned to you, and a sedative will be administered," etc. Why take the dog away to put in the port, when the sedative and the lethal dose of anesthesia are going to be administered and the dog will die right in front of the owner, unless there are sometimes distressing difficulties with installing the port?
Lethal injections and gas chambers were a foot-in-the-door from those who sought to eliminate the death penality over the long run. The electric chair was an anti-AC electricity marketing campaign, and not directly political.
Firing squads and hanging work very, very well. They generated body weight to rope length charts back in the day -- fall far enough to die but not so far that the body would be decapitated. If serious about executions, use one of these methods.
Jamie, when we put our last dog down, we had someone come to the house. She did everything right on front of us, talked us through the process, let my then 4-year-old daughter take part and, when it was done, she made a couple keepsakes (hair, pawprint in clay) and took the the body away. It was a great way to say the final goodbye and wasn't that much more expensive than taking her to the vet to have it done in a back room on a steel table.
In Japan the condemned is not informed of the date of his execution until the morning it is to take place. The method is hanging.
A wall, blind fold and cigarette is the only way to go
Is it possible to become so obese that any length of drop from a gallows sufficient to kill you by breaking your neck would pull off your head?
"After that didn’t work, the doctor asked whether anyone in the room knew how to gain access to Mr. Carruthers’s jugular vein. Then, the doctor decided to attempt to establish a central line... puncturing the neck, chest or groin.... Eventually, the doctor said he was not able to set a central line.... "
Get a cath lab doc. They can do this in their sleep.
"I've known several people whose veins are notoriously hard to "find."
Living with leukemia, I get a lot of vein sticks. I've been told I have "good veins". Nobody ever has any problems. Guess I better not commit any capital crimes.
Planned Perphood (PP)
Jeez. What's wrong with a firing squad?
"Is it possible to become so obese that any length of drop from a gallows sufficient to kill you by breaking your neck would pull off your head?"
Considering there is a physical limit to the tensile strength of human flesh (roughly 28 MPa) it's absolutely possible. The question is whether someone could achieve the body mass necessary before robbing the noose of its opportunity.
@RideSpaceMountain
Why do you know this?
"Considering there is a physical limit to the tensile strength of human flesh (roughly 28 MPa)"
One of the few great innovations to come out of France was the guillotine—quick, cheap, painless, and guaranteed to work every time (provided the “doctor” can find the neck).
Dumb question:
Why isn't it double jeopardy to put someone through an execution procedure twice? The state had it's chance. They screwed it up. Why do they get another bite at the jugular, so to speak?
Another anti-death penalty article disguised as "objective Journalism". These things get so tiresome. Oh my, the man to be executed may or may not have felt some pain when the needle went in. Welcome, to my world. I've been in the hospital several times, and a few nurses have caused me pain when the IV needle went in.
Since the "news" people are only interested in putting out anti-death penalty propaganda, they should be barred.
This whole failure to "find a vein" was obviously done deliberately. I could've found a vein! Maybe Tennessee could hire me. Nurses and doctors always find a vein to put the IV - if they couldn't the impact on surgery and hospital care would be massive.
Medical professionals use several proven techniques to locate difficult veins:Gravity and Heat: Lowering the arm and applying warm compresses increases blood flow, which naturally engorges the veins.Tourniquets: A band is applied to the upper arm to restrict blood flow, making veins more prominent.Advanced Technology: Clinicians often use pocket ultrasounds or near-infrared Vein Viewers to illuminate hidden or deep vein pathways.
I just do not have a lot of sympathy, well none, for death row inmates. I like a firing squad.
As noted, some healthcare workers have much more skill at locating veins than others. That they did not know ahead of time that he had poor veins and plan accordingly seems inexcusable. Perhaps the problem is that pesky Hippocratic oath.
Inert gas asphyxiation.
Once more, rules of engagement prove to be inadequate to the task. This wasn't a problem when we were kids.
What a great guy:
"Carruthers received his death sentence in 1996 for the robbery and killing of three people in 1994: Marcellos Anderson, 21, Frederick Tucker, 17, and Delois Anderson, 43. Authorities said that Marcellos Anderson was a drug dealer, and Carruthers attempted to take control of illegal narcotics sales in their Memphis neighborhood.
"Carruthers represented himself at trial after repeatedly objecting to court-appointed counsel and making threats against several attorneys."
Sounds like a Monday at any Quest Lab. If I can say that.
Thank you, Joe Bar, for posting the crime Tony Caruthers was convicted of. It proved very difficult for me to find that information on the internet. Most results seemed to be about how poor Mr. Caruthers suffered while doctors tried to find a vein. Second were articles questioning the legitimacy of the conviction.
"Convicted and sentenced to death for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping and murder of Marcellos Anderson, Delois Anderson, and Frederick Tucker in 1994,"
Aww, poor guy. Being poked with a needle numerous times sound about 10% or less pain from a decent toothache.
Personally against death penalty now. Dead guy has no suffering. Blind and cripple the real bad guys who deserve more than a life sentence.
Fentynal is your friend. Add it to his dinner without telling him.
@The Vault Dweller, in another life I was an energetics and BDA (bomb damage assessment) subject matter expert before reclassifying mid-career. Like Gen. Mattis once said, I'm a very nice guy that happens to have a 'plan to kill everyone I meet'.
Let’s get a veterinarian in there. I’ve helped many a dog and cat across the Rainbow Bridge and never seen any discomfort or distress as I held them.
In 1953, the kidnappers and killers of Bobby Greenlease were executed less than 100 days after the murder. Why has our justice ‘system’ become such a piece of crap.
Great fodder for lefties who like to de-emphasize real victims in favor of murderers. Stupid of the authorities who apparently are too cheap to have a real phlebotomist on hand, or maybe a vet. Vets don’t seem to have much difficulty euthanizing our pets. The hoopla and chaos is to placate those same lefties who, obviously, cannot be placated.
Say what you will about firing squads and hangings but they work pretty well pretty much every time. No need to hide while you search a junkie for a useable vein. Likely a dehydrated junkie with extra tiny veins.
And I have read advice to death row inmates to dehydrate themselves to make the procedure more appalling. As someone who was repeated strangled by her rapist, later serial killer, I can only say there's more than one way to access or cut off blood. Use the neck vein/artery, or the deep chest one used for infusion portals on frail cancer patients. Heck, if it's good enough for your, suffering, dying mother, it's good enough for some scumbag who slaughtered 50 women.
Even though that's not counted as a hate crime.
The lefties who pity the poor guy who gets poked with a needle are probably OK with what Luigi Mangione did to that insurance executive.
And yet anesthesia proceeds for thousands of patients going into surgery every single day of the week, with absolutely no problems whatsoever. Why, it's almost as if we're being fed a battlefront line of propaganda, lovingly and carefully curated, presented in order to move public opinion.
Sorry to hear that, Original Mike.
I've always thought recovered addicts would make great phlebotomists.
“ Bob Boyd said...
They'll probably have robot executioners pretty soon.
Optimus will just come into your cell and turn your head.”
Stoptimus Spine
Bob, that really is a dumb question, unless it was sarcasm.
I volunteer to find a vein at executions! I have no medical training but I have seen myself stuck enough times to know how to do it.
As to the article: You cannot hate journalists enough.
I'd choose a firing squad rather than this petty torture, if I were in a position to do so. A hard punch in the chest, followed by complete and permanent loss of consciousness within fifteen or twenty seconds.
But carbon monoxide is the way to go in my view. It can be bought at any welding supply house. It is odorless and easily administered via face mask, quickly sending the recipient into unconsciousness followed by a painless death.
Is it possible to become so obese that any length of drop from a gallows sufficient to kill you by breaking your neck would pull off your head?
Yes.
I'm not sure this bungled execution was due to obesity, but it sure was memorable:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Dugan
Why firing squads were invented...
Delois Anderson was an innocent, not a drug dealer, just a house wife. Caruthers and his partner buried her alive in the same grave with the two other victims and she died of asphyxiation.
We can put someone in a slumber mode deep enough to perform surgery on them without them waking. Routinely and often. Why not someone on death row?
Or sealed room, gas released as prisoner sleeps never to wake up.
Put them together and call it the Michael Jackson technique.
(Using a phrase I actually hate) Hey we can put a man on the moon, why can'r we off a bad guy?
Marcus Bressler said...
Bob, that really is a dumb question
Okay, but what is the answer?
sounds like the ding dong nurses at my wife’s old infusion center
Or sealed room, gas released as prisoner sleeps never to wake up.
Arizona and a few other states used to have a gas chamber for this purpose. But it used cyanide, which is said to be a rather unpleasant and lengthy way to die.
I care little about the pain of a convicted murder's last minutes on earth, but I do care about maintaining a harsh and frequently applied death penalty to cull the gene pool of violent tendencies, as Europe did quite successfully for most of the past millennium. Again, I say we ought to put the gas chambers back in use, but fill them with carbon monoxide instead, to protect the tender psyches of women and male Democrats.
The Russians have a good idea. Their “9mm headache” is cheap, effective, and instantaneous. A single round of 9mm hollow point ammo goes for about 40 cents (in a box of 500) and if you know where to aim at the back of the head they’ll be dead before the brain processes the sound of the shot. .
Tina,
Can ann start a go fund me to get you counseling/therapy help?
You are obviously unwell and crying out for help here. Ann and meade are users, they don't care about what you are dropping here. You should get help for your personal issues. No stigma.
Is it possible to become so obese that any length of drop from a gallows sufficient to kill you by breaking your neck would pull off your head?
The Mitchell Rupe defense in Washington state.
The question is whether someone could achieve the body mass necessary before robbing the noose of its opportunity.
Again, Mitchell Rupe
Moral of the story: drink nothing for days before you are scheduled to be executed.
Gallows or firing squad.
And if the US adopted the “9mm headache” we could alsodo like the Russians used to do (and perhaps still do) — send a bill fff Dr the ammunition used to the next of kin.
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