Tenn. death row inmate's execution called off for year over vein issue

May 21 (UPI) -- A Tennessee man's execution was called off on Thursday after state Department of Corrections officers could not find a vein for a backup intravenous line.

Gov. Bill Lee said he granted a one-year reprieve to Tony Corruthers, who was convicted of triple murder in 1994, after the execution team botched finding a vein for the line.

Lawyers for Carruthers said he was in excruciating pain and "there was blood everywhere" after repeated attempts to access a vein at other potential IV sites.

"The state of Tennessee is currently torturing a man who maintains his innocence in the name of justice," said Melanie Vergecia, one of the attorneys representing Carruthers. "This is not how our system is supposed to work.

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The Department of Corrections said its medical staff "quickly established" a primary IV line, but could not find a vein for the backup line and were unable to insert a central line.

"The team was unable to immediately establish a backup line pursuant to the lethal injection execution protocol," the department said in a statement after the reprieve was granted.

Curruthers was to be the first person executed by the state this year after ending a three-year pause in 2025, and his attorneys raised concern that "expired drugs" would be used in his execution because of execution drugs having not been prepared correctly in 2018.

Carruthers was convicted in 1994 in the kidnapping and murder Marcellos Anderson, Anderson's mother, Delois Anderson, and Frederick Tucker, although he has maintained his innocence.

Prosecutors had alleged that Carruthers and a friend committed the murders as part of a plan to sell drugs in the neighborhood.