TENNESSEE seems to be hell bent on executing a possibly innocent man even though most residents of Tennessee oppose the death penalty and Tennessee has a long history of opposition to the death penalty. Please sign the ACLU's petition to Tennessee governor Bill Lee R-TN calling on him to stop Tony Carruthers' execution. There are multiple violations of justice that resulted in Tony Carruthers' conviction and sentencing, Gov Lee has the moral ability and legal responsibility to halt this execution and to order the courts to test the fingerprint and DNA evidence and release the results to Tony Carruthers and his defense. This from the ACLU and the Tennessee Lookout
The state of Tennessee is planning to execute a potentially innocent man this month. Critical evidence that could prove Tony Carruthers' innocence has never been tested – yet he's spent the 30 years since his conviction in limbo on death row, awaiting an execution for a crime he's maintained he never committed. The ACLU is fighting to get a court to consider all of the evidence in Tony's case, including untested fingerprints and DNA, statements from his co-defendant exonerating Tony, and evidence that the state's main witness was secretly being paid to testify. And you can join us in demanding justice.
This forensic testing is critical to determine if Tennessee even has the right person. There is no physical evidence connecting Tony Carruthers to the crime, so his conviction was entirely based on testimony, primarily from one paid informant who later recanted his statement. One of the men who was involved even said that Tony played no role in the crime and instead pointed investigators to another man – a man whose fingerprints still have not been compared to the unmatched ones found at the crime scene. Today, Tony's lawyers met with the governor's office to lay out these injustices and ask for clemency. In the meantime, we're still fighting in the courts – and we need every person with us to show the governor the public is watching and demanding justice for Tony. Thanks for fighting for justice with us, Maria DeLiberato Tony Carruthers could be innocent – but without your intervention, Tennessee may execute him without considering the full evidence. We’re calling on the state to halt his execution and test the forensic evidence. Tony was convicted without physical evidence, based on testimony from informants, including one paid by the state who later recanted his statement. For decades, the state denied that this informant was paid, and actively prevented the jury from knowing the full truth. Tony was forced to represent himself in court – resulting in a trial riddled with so many mistakes that his co-defendant was granted a new trial. If Tennessee executes Tony, he will be the first person in nearly a century to be executed after being forced to represent himself at trial. There are several fingerprints and DNA from the scene that don't match Tony, but they were never compared to a suspect identified by his co-defendant. Additional evidence has never been tested. These tests could prove Tony's innocence: This evidence MUST be considered before his scheduled execution on May 21. Join us in calling for Tony's execution to be immediately halted to allow for necessary fingerprint and DNA testing. Support this petition: |
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| This email was sent to: bucknackt@gmail.com You are receiving this message because you signed up to receive emails from the American Civil Liberties Union. Sign up for ACLU texts | Unsubscribe Please note: If you forward or distribute, the links will open a page with your information filled in. We respect your right to privacy – view our policy. This email was sent by: ACLU 125 Broad St. New York, NY 10004 Tennessee’s death penalty is backThough Tennessee has flirted with abolition in the past, it’s never fully committed itself to the necessary moral evolution most of its residents are now ready for. Quietly, on Dec. 27, 2024, the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) completed a multi-year lethal injection protocol review ordered by Gov. Bill Lee in 2022. The completed review marked the end of a pause Lee had placed on executions. The ink was barely dry on TDOC’s report when, on Feb. 14, the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office asked the state Supreme Court to set execution dates for five of the 46 people currently on death row. This all comes at a time when Gallup reports Americans’ support for capital punishment is at a five-decade low, a drop in support that’s evident even in red states. According to a 2022 Vanderbilt poll, a majority of Tennesseans now oppose the death penalty. Historically, Tennessee has led the South in efforts to abolish the death penaltyTennessee’s history regarding capital punishment is surprisingly progressive, and with no executions in five years, there’s no reason the 2020 execution of Nicholas Sutton shouldn’t be Tennessee’s last. Moments when Tennessee went against the grain regarding capital punishment include:
Why examine the history? Because it’s not a foregone conclusion that just because Tennessee is a red state, its residents must sit idly by and condone state-sanctioned murder Could I put an amendment on that bill (regarding methods of execution) that would include hanging by a tree? – Rep. Paul Sherrell, R-Sparta, Feb. 28, 2023 Why the death penalty must be opposedThe death penalty is uncivilized in theory and unfair in practice. It must be opposed because: It can result in the deaths of innocent people. The U.S. criminal justice system is deeply flawed and often makes mistakes. Since 1973, at least 200 people who were on death row were later exonerated. For every eight people executed in the U.S., one person sentenced to death is exonerated, meaning the system is only right 88% of the time. It’s impossible to know how many innocent Americans have been executed before they could be exonerated, because courts don’t entertain claims of innocence for dead people. But civil rights groups have gathered troves of evidence showing dozens of executed prisoners were innocent. It is not an effective deterrent. The death penalty is often used as a political tool to create the illusion of being “tough on crime” while doing nothing to address the underlying social and economic factors that lead to crime. The states with the highest murder rates all practice capital punishment. Meanwhile, Canada’s murder rate is half what it was when our neighbors to the north abolished their death penalty in 1976. It is applied unfairly. The death penalty is disproportionately imposed upon those whose victims are white, on offenders who are people of color, and on people who are poor and uneducated. In Tennessee, only 40% of homicides involve white victims, yet 74% of all death sentences are for those convicted of killing white people. It is a blatant violation of one’s Constitutional rights. The death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the Eighth Amendment. According to the ACLU, “It is cruel because it is a relic of the earliest days of penology, when slavery, branding, and other corporal punishments were commonplace. Like those barbaric practices, executions have no place in a civilized society. It is unusual because only the United States of all the western industrialized nations engages in this punishment.” Cognitive dissonance is the last obstacle to abolishing capital punishmentThough the death penalty feels as well-entrenched as ever and though Tennessee may soon return to executing prisoners, the practice is hanging on by a thread. In Tennessee and other red states, the only group still supporting capital punishment are conservatives. Why are many conservatives quick to call out inefficiencies and errors in government, yet they’re willing to back the government to the hilt when it comes to the life-or-death decision to carry out an execution? Many conservatives say the government is untrustworthy and makes mistakes all the time, but not on matters of capital punishment? Granting the government — which can and does make mistakes — the right to kill Americans means handing it immense power with little oversight, something conservatives are typically loath to do. With that in mind, one does not even need to engage in questions about the morality of delivering death as punishment for a crime because the answer to the previous question — can the government be trusted to administer death as punishment? — is no. |
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