'Outright barbaric': Red state's upcoming 'grotesque spectacle' has attorney up in arms

A lawyer for Anthony Darrell Hines, a man who was convicted of the 1985 murder of Catherine Jean Jackson Jenkins in Kingston Springs, Tennessee, said the state’s Republican governor will force a “grotesque spectacle” to move forward on Thursday by refusing to stop Hines’ planned execution despite a botched lethal injection involving another death row inmate in May.

The lawyer, Kit Thomas, noted that Hines, 66, has experienced muscular atrophy after several recent strokes, has been in a wheelchair or confined to his bed for eight months, and has stiffness in his arm that forces his hand to remain clenched in a fist—medical issues that could make it challenging for physicians and staffers to establish an IV line to administer lethal drugs.

Hines’ medical condition particularly raises alarm considering the Tennessee Department of Correction’s attempt to execute Tony Carruthers earlier this year in an ordeal that continued for an hour and 15 minutes before a warden intervened.

An IV team and a physician, later publicly identified as Dr. Mark Fowler, attempted to locate veins in Carruthers’ arms, legs, feet, shoulder, hands, and finally his neck, causing what one witness called a “bloody mess” as the inmate remained strapped to a gurney, groaning in pain.

An attorney for Carruthers described the scene as “outright barbaric.”

Thomas has asked the US Supreme Court to intervene to stop Hines’ lethal injection.

Gov. Bill Lee granted a one-year reprieve to Carruthers, and Fowler was deposed by attorneys—a process during which he admitted he had not placed an IV line since 2013.

Thomas said the Department of Correction had violated its own protocol by appointing an unqualified doctor to carry out Carruthers’ execution, and Hines’ legal team expressed concern that the state has not disclosed whether Fowler will be involved in the inmate’s planned lethal injection.

Last week, the Tennessee Supreme Courtrejected Hines’ request to force the state to confirm whether Fowler will be administering the drugs.

“It’s particularly horrifying to think of them lifting a partially paralyzed man from his hospital bed, which he’s lived in for the last eight months, then strapping him to a gurney, while executioners attempt to establish IV access,” Thomas said.

The advocacy group Death Penalty Action delivered a petition to Lee’s office last week calling on him to halt Hines’ execution.

Hines’ legal team has also expressed concern about the leadership of Frank Strada, who oversees executions for the Department of Correction and was previously deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reentry.

During his tenure in Arizona, the three executions that took place were “marked by prolonged and problematic attempts to establish IV access.”

Thomas has also called on the state to confirm that officials have done quality control testing on the drugs scheduled to be used Thursday and ensured they were properly stored and handled. Nine Republican state senators, all of whom support capital punishment, wrote to Lee in June, urging an independent review of Carruthers’ botched execution and “independent testing” of the lethal drugs the state plans to use before it attempts another execution.

“All the lawyers want to know is, will there be a qualified physician on staff? That’s a very reasonable request for them to make,” Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told Fox 17 in Nashville. “The state of Tennessee has refused to answer this question, and the Tennessee courts have not forced them to answer. So everyone is in the dark and concerns are mounting.”