After failed execution, health workers say Tennessee's method flouts medical ethics
Healthcare workers in Tennessee are calling for an end to medical professional involvement in executions following a botched attempt to inject an inmate. The group, supported by some lawmakers, is advocating for a moratorium on the death penalty due to ethical concerns and logistical failures.
Why it matters
This highlights the growing ethical conflict between medical practice and state-sanctioned capital punishment in the United States.
This story describes the lethal injection procedure used in a death penalty.
In May, a group of healthcare workers spent about an hour trying to establish complete IV access so they could inject Tony Carruthers, an inmate at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, with a lethal dose of sedative.
Maria DeLiberato, an attorney for Carruthers, was in the room. She said the workers stuck his arms and feet with needles, to no avail. A doctor then tried to insert a central line through his collarbone and shoulder. That didn't work, either.
This story was produced in partnership with KFF Health News .
Carruthers groaned in pain and blood oozed from puncture wounds, DeLiberato said in a news briefing.
After more than an hour, Gov. Bill Lee called the warden, ordering him to halt the execution attempt. He later granted Carruthers a one-year reprieve.
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