Update from our lawyers: A yearlong reprieve for Tony Carruthers 22MAI26

 

I thank God and the ACLU and Tennessee Gov Bill Lee for Tony Carruthers not being executed on 21 May. I took a lot of prayer and legal actions, petition signatories and phone calls for this to happen and I am so thankful to God and for all who participated. We have a year to get Tony Carruthers pardoned, stay tuned and don't give up, hold on to faith and activism!!! From the ACLU.....

Thanks to the advocacy of ACLU supporters like you, Tony Carruthers was granted a yearlong reprieve yesterday after surviving a torturous execution attempt. This gives us time to prove what Tony has been saying for 30 years: that he did not commit this crime. Yesterday, I witnessed Tennessee torture Tony Carruthers for over an hour, trying and failing to find an IV line for the lethal drugs they intended to use to execute him. But thanks to you, the governor knew that the country was watching Tennessee. For months, we've been pressuring the governor to step in because this execution attempt should have never happened in the first place. Tony was convicted on false, paid testimony without any physical evidence. But the state has so far refused to simply test the unmatched forensic evidence which could prove him innocent. We went to court demanding that the state fully test neglected forensic evidence. We delivered over 130,000 signatures right to the governor's office alongside exonerees who know firsthand what it is like to be convicted of a crime you didn't commit. And when the governor still refused to intervene, we went to the Supreme Court – while people like you filled his voicemail box and email with demands to save Tony's life. The governor finally stepped in to issue a reprieve following the botched attempt yesterday – delaying Tony's execution not just for a day or a week, but for a full year. This gives us a year to keep pressuring the state to test the evidence. A year to stop an irreversible miscarriage of justice. A year to save Tony's life. I'll be in touch with next steps soon, but I wanted to thank you for everything you've done to fight for Tony. Undeniably, your advocacy and the national attention supporters like you brought to this case saved Tony's life yesterday. We're so grateful for everything you do. Thank you for fighting for justice, Maria DeLiberato Pronouns: She, her, hers Senior Counsel, ACLU Capital Punishment Project

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[Action Urgently Needed] Tony Carruthers' execution is scheduled for 21 MAY 26

 

TONY CARRUTHERS might be executed today. I sent this to all my contacts on google messages and posted on BlueSky and facebook and am praying Tennessee Gov Bill Lee listens to God and canceles this unjust execution. Please share this call to action and call Gov Lee's office asking him to spare Tony Carruthers' life. From ACLU.....

Tony Carruthers is set to be executed tomorrow. We're going to the Supreme Court now to stop this irreversible injustice, but we need you with us one more time. Call 855-880-2155 and tell Tennessee Governor Bill Lee: The country is watching. Halt Tony Carruthers' execution. Together with Tony's family, we delivered over 130,000 petition signatures – including your name – to the governor's office earlier this week. The Carruthers family delivered the petition signed by more than 130,000 people to Governor Lee's office this week. Yet despite this powerful display, the governor announced just hours later that he doesn't intend to stop the execution, even though we cannot say for certain who committed the crime. The state continues to sit on DNA and fingerprint evidence that could prove that Tony was wrongfully convicted. While we urge the Supreme Court to stop the state from going forward with the execution, we need to keep putting the heat on the governor for allowing this horrifying miscarriage of justice to proceed. Call Governor Lee at 855-880-2155 now and remind him: Killing a potentially innocent man is not justice. Don't let Tony Carruthers be wrongfully executed on your watch. Thank you for adding to the growing chorus calling for justice for Tony – and thank you for taking action with us again today. Maria DeLiberato Pronouns: She, her, hers Senior Counsel, ACLU Capital Punishment Project

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A potentially innocent man could receive the death penalty this month & Tennessee’s death penalty is back 5MAI26&3MAR25

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. We're delivering a petition to the Tennessee governor calling for all evidence to be tested and examined before Tony Carruthers is unjustly executed. Sign on now and we'll bring your name to the governor's mansion. Add Your Name 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. His execution is scheduled for May 21 – so we're putting as much pressure as possible on Tennessee to appropriately test all evidence before then. Join us: Demand forensic testing and prevent this wrongful execution. Thanks for fighting for justice with us, Maria DeLiberato Pronouns: She, her, hers Senior Counsel, ACLU Capital Punishment Project 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: The state of Tennessee is currently planning to execute a potentially innocent man without even considering all of the evidence available. Before the state carries out this irreversible punishment on May 21st, it must answer the most basic question: do they have the right person? The death penalty is already an inherently anti-constitutional policy – one that is irreversible, inhumane, and rife with racism and wrongful executions. Tony Carruther's scheduled execution encompasses all of those problems. But Tony's situation is even more dire. His trial was riddled with errors. He was denied legal counsel. There was no physical evidence linked to him. The evidence against him that was presented at trial came from informants who have since recanted their statements or been discredited. The state of Tennessee must conduct a full investigation into the fingerprint and DNA evidence, including comparing the fingerprints and DNA found at the scene to the suspect identified by Tony's co-defendant. These tests could prove Tony's innocence. We demand that Tony’s execution be halted immediately and that a comprehensive investigation be carried out. We refuse to allow one more preventable wrongful execution.

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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 back Though 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.  Ren Brabenec March 3, 20254:59 am 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 penalty   Tennessee’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: Tennessee became the first state in the nation to turn away from the traditional and mandatory death sentence for convicted murderers in 1838. Tennessee was the only former Confederate state to abolish execution in the late 1800s. The state legislature formally ended capital punishment in 1915, reinstating it in 1919. Tennessee had one of the longest pauses on executions in the nation, with no executions committed between 1960 and 2000. In 1965, Gov. Frank Clement commuted the sentences of everyone on Tennessee’s death row after a bill to abolish capital punishment was defeated by just one vote. Tennessee became one of the first of four states to exclude the death penalty for those with intellectual disabilities in 1990.  Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, multiple moratoriums were placed on capital punishment while the state reviewed its execution protocols. 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 opposed The 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 punishment Though 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. Ren Brabenec Ren Brabenec is a Nashville-based freelance writer and journalist. He reports on politics, local issues, environmental stories, foreign policy, and the economy. For questions, comments, or to suggest a story, email, hello@renbrabenec.com. MORE FROM AUTHOR

Executed. Sign our petition to the American Pharmaceutical Association: Petition Text: Ban your members from participating in executions in any way." 27JAN14

I have been against the death penalty, capital punishment, for years. I know there are some people on death row who have committed horrible crimes and have been cruel and sadistic and even taken pleasure when they have killed others. That does not justify doing the same to them, especially in a nation that describes itself as a Christian nation. I am not opposed to keeping these people in prison for the rest of their lives as punishment for their crimes, but I will never be in favor of the death penalty. Let them live out their life in prison and maybe at some point they will make their peace with God before they die. A Christian nation would hold out that hope for these people. The following is from SumOfUs about the cruel execution last week of Dennis McGuire, guilty of murder, undeserving of cruel and unusual punishment. Please click the link to sign the petition calling on the American Pharmaceutical Association to ban their members from participating in executions. 
Two weeks ago, the state of Ohio executed a man using a method that witnesses say was one of the most cruel and unusual in recent history. Dennis McGuire suffered for 24 long minutes before finally passing away -- because Ohio decided to use an untested drug to kill him.
As his adult children sobbed a few feet away, Dennis McGuire suffered for 24 long minutes while Ohio used an untested drug to execute him.
A small group of pharmacists are keeping executions running on experimental drugs after everyone else has refused to participate.
Let's demand that the American Pharmaceutical Association bans their members from participating, and end these cruel executions.

With doctors, nurses, and pharmaceutical companies all refusing to participate in executions, a small group of pharmacists are experimenting with untested, lethal injection cocktails to gruesomely kill people like Dennis McGuire and keep executions happening.
If the American Pharmaceutical Association would ban their members from participating in executions, we could stop lethal injections and end almost all executions in the US.
Tell the American Pharmaceutical Association: Stop your involvement in executions now.
Electric chairs, gas chambers, hangings, and firing squads have been banned by almost all states, leaving lethal injection as the only legal method of killing left. But lethal injection by its very nature requires medical professionals to be involved. Doctors and nurses have long since barred themselves from participating in executions, and they haven’t participated for decades. More recently, all major pharmaceutical companies have banned their drugs from being used.
So states have been been forced to turn to so-called “compounding pharmacists” -- who are not regulated by the FDA -- to develop untested cocktails like the one used to kill McGuire.
Ahead of the American Pharmaceutical Association’s annual meeting this spring, let's tell pharmacists in the US to do something that they should have done decades ago: ban pharmacists from executions and effectively end capital punishment in most states. 
American Pharmaceutical Association: Ban your members from participating in executions.
McGuire was injected with a lethal cocktail that a federal judge conceded ahead of time was an "experiment in lethal injection processes". As his adult children sobbed a few feet away in a witness room, McGuire suffered for 24 long minutes -- calling out to his children and struggling loudly for air. It was one of the longest executions since Ohio resumed capital punishment in 1999.
Without medical professionals, it would be impossible for states to produce lethal injection cocktails. Doctors and nurses in the US are already banned by their professional associations from participating in state killings. But some pharmacists, a profession that is meant to help and save people, are participating in these killings for a few extra dollars. Let’s call on pharmacists to ban their profeession from participating in capital punishment.
Call on pharmacists to take a stand against any involvement in capital punishment.
Thank you for all you do,
Angus, Kelsey, Martin, and the rest of the team at SumOfUs

**********
More Information:
Ohio executes inmate using untried, untested lethal injection method, The Guardian, 16 January 2014
Did Ohio's New Lethal-Injection Cocktail Lead to a Cruel and Unusual Death For Dennis McGuire?, Slate, 16 January 2014
SumOfUs is a worldwide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy.

Please help keep SumOfUs strong by chipping in $3.

Breaking: Maryland abolishes the death penalty! 15MAR13

THIS is an amazing victory for civil rights, civil liberties and human rights in Maryland and America!

	We made history! Maryland will almost certainly become the 18th state to abolish the death penalty.
	The vote is in. We did it! As a resident of Maryland myself, I'm proud to say it -- there will be no more death sentences in Maryland, ever again. Death penalty repeal passed the Maryland House today, its final real hurdle. The bill moves on to Governor Martin O'Malley to be signed into law. The Governor's leadership in ending Maryland's deeply flawed death penalty -- together with tireless work by activists like you and our allies in the abolition movement -- made today's sweet victory possible. Today's news is bigger than Maryland. It's a sign that the United States' embrace of the death penalty has passed its peak. Death sentences are down, public skepticism is up. We couldn't do this alone. Moving the needle for justice takes time, planning, passion, and a strong coalition of allies. Amnesty activists have worked for death penalty repeal in Maryland for a generation -- since the 1980s --and it has never been easy. In the words of Amnesty's current State Death Penalty Abolition Coordinators in Maryland, Andrea Hall and Kevin Scruggs: "Through it all we armed ourselves with the facts, we debated, disagreed -- and sometimes, we changed minds… [We] spent decades being told "not this year" but never accepting defeat." Even as we taste victory in Maryland, our work continues. Maryland's death penalty bill was stripped of a key provision to provide funding support for victims' families -- and we are calling on Gov. O'Malley to make sure that funding is covered in his budget. There are also 5 remaining death sentences in Maryland that the governor must commute --there can be no more executions in Maryland! And from Maryland, our fight moves on to Colorado and Delaware, two states that will be seriously considering death penalty repeal bills in the coming weeks. Will Colorado and Delaware follow Maryland's lead in ending the expensive distraction and cruel human rights abuse that is the death penalty? We sure hope so -- and as in Maryland, we'll keep fighting as long as it takes to make justice heard. Thank you for joining me in celebrating this Maryland victory for death penalty abolition in the United States. Here's to many more human rights victories to come! Sincerely, Brian Evans Acting Director, Death Penalty Abolition Campaign Amnesty International USA

The Kevin Cooper Death Penalty Case from MOJO 13DEZ10

A Christian nation should not have the death penalty, a Christian nation would convict and punish and leave the determination of life or death up to God and trust Him to administer final justice. Here is another example of what it wrong with the death penalty from MOJO. Click here to go to 
http://www.freekevincooper.org

— Kevin Cooper | savekevincooper.org.

Kevin Cooper will almost certainly be executed sometime early next year for the murders, in 1983, of a California couple, their 10-year-old daughter, and the daughter's 11-year-old friend. But as Nick Kristof recently explained in the New York Times, there is more than a little doubt that Cooper is guilty. Five federal judges have argued that Cooper may have been framed. The San Francisco Chronicle summarizes some of the issues at stake:

Just one eyewitness survived the horrific scene, a 9-year-old boy whose throat had been sliced. His initial account of the attack is one of many disturbing contradictions that led five federal judges to take issue with their colleagues' decision to put a stop to Cooper's appeals.
The boy recalled three attackers—all white. Cooper is black. The surviving victim later changed his story to claim that he saw a black man with a great "poof" of hair standing over his parents' bed. Cooper, who had just escaped from a nearby minimum-security prison, wore his hair in cornrows at the time.

Investigators also seem to have mishandled evidence—including a crucial blood smear on a t-shirt left near the scene. Both Judge William A. Fletcher's opinion arguing for rehearing the case (PDF) and Kristof's column warning that Cooper may be innocent are well worth reading. But to get a sense of what Cooper's advocates are up against, you should read Debra J. Saunders, the Chronicle's "Token Conservative." She says "Kevin Cooper is a murderer."
The dispute here highlights the problem with focusing on individual death row inmates: every controversial death penalty case can be argued either way. I understand that it might be easier to get caught up in the pursuit of one person's exoneration than it is to campaign for a blanket ban on a practice that has been almost entirely eliminated in other first-world democracies. Ultimately, not every person the Innocence Project or Nick Kristof campaigns for is going to be actually innnocent. The difficulty with the death penalty, though, is that nagging doubt that perhaps not every person who is actually executed is actually guilty. This is to say: the facts of any individual case can be seen (and argued) in different ways. But the overall picture is one of a practice that is, as the Times' Adam Liptak writes (paraphrasing John Paul Stevens), "shot through with racism, skewed toward conviction, infected with politics and tinged with hysteria." That, even more than the execution of any individual, is the real problem. 

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