Tennessee delays prisoner's execution for one year after staff can't find his vein

Tennessee GOP Gov. Bill Lee on Thursday delayed an inmate's execution by one year after the state Department of Corrections' medical staff failed to find a suitable vein to administer the lethal injection drugs into.

The man scheduled to be executed was Tony Carruthers, who was convicted of three 1994 murders and sentenced to death in 1996. 

Lee scheduled the new execution to take place on May 21, 2027, exactly one year after he was initially scheduled for execution. 

Carruthers' attorneys have argued that he was wrongfully convicted and stated he has mental illnesses that “continue to impair his understanding of his legal situation and his impending execution," according to the New York Times. 

He would be the first person in more than a century to be executed after representing himself at trial, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. 

Several other states have also delayed or rescheduled executions recently over failure to find suitable veins, including Alabama, which suspended all executions for several months from 2022 into 2023 over the issue.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.