A Tennessee man scheduled for the death penalty earlier this week unexpectedly escaped his punishment when state executioners were unable to locate a vein in the man's arm to deliver the deadly concoction for lethal injection.
The governor, for some reason, then decided to give the man one more year of taxpayer funded living.
Here's News Channel 5:
Gov. Bill Lee granted a one-year reprieve Thursday after Tennessee halted the planned execution of death row inmate Tony Carruthers amid reported problems establishing IV access for the lethal injection.
Carruthers, 57, was scheduled to be executed at 10 a.m. for the 1994 kidnappings and killings of Marcellos Anderson, Delois Anderson and Frederick Tucker in Memphis.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said execution staff were unable to establish the backup IV line required under the state's lethal injection protocol.
Yeah, I think we've made the death penalty way too complicated.
They couldn't find a vein so this man escapes his mandated sentence of death for another year for killings that happened over THIRTY years ago.
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You may not find a vein, but five guns won't all jam.
Maria DeLiberato, senior counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)'s Capital Punishment Project, who was present for the planned execution, told The Associated Press she watched officials spend roughly an hour attempting to establish IV access before the execution was halted.
DeLiberato said Carruthers was 'wincing and groaning' during the process and described it as 'horrible' to witness.
Earlier in the day, Amy Harwell, First Assistant Federal Public Defender for the Middle District of Tennessee, told NewsChannel 5 the execution process had been paused.
Proof once again that all of these "humane" ways to execute the death penalty aren't any more merciful than a quick drop and a sudden stop.
Maybe next year they'll be luckier in finding a vein, or get a better doctor.
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