LIVE | Attorneys hold press conference to call for pause on executions in Tennessee

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:01:26]All right. Go.

[00:02:16]Trying to get away.

[00:02:36]Thanks.

[00:02:46]Yeah, you can put in the hallway. Okay.

[00:02:49]>> Yeah.

[00:02:57]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:03:54]Yeah, just assume. Just 22.

[00:05:57]Thank you all for coming. I'm Amy Harwell. I'm the first assistant federal public defender here for the middle district of Tennessee.

[00:06:05]We're all here because on Thursday, the Tennessee Department of Correction botched an attempted execution of our client Tony Kurthers.

[00:06:14]They subjected him to over an hour and a half of torture.

[00:06:20]As incompetent medical personnel attempted to place an IV line, they poked and poked and poked him more than a dozen times in his arms, his hands, his feet, and his chest.

[00:06:34]We're grateful to Governor Lee for doing the right thing and stepping in and issuing a reprieve for Mr. Kathers.

[00:06:42]But that reprieve will not solve the problems with Tennessee's lethal injection protocol. There's more that needs to be done.

[00:06:51]What happened to Mr. Kathers on Thursday was not just foreseeable. It was in fact foreseen.

[00:06:59]For over a year, attorneys for this office have been engaged in litigation in chancery court under the case name Burns versus Strada.

[00:07:10]letting the TDOC and the attorney generals know what is wrong with the 2025 lethal injection protocol.

[00:07:18]Unfortunately, TDOC chose to ignore the warnings and Mr. Kurther suffered as a result.

[00:07:27]We're here today because we're calling on Governor Lee to let the courts decide the Burns case before subjecting anyone else to lethal injection protocol and to the sort of torture that Mr. brothers suffered on Thursday.

[00:07:41]To that end, we respectfully ask Ethan Lee to extend the reprief to pause all executions until the Burns litigation is complete.

[00:07:51]To explain why a pause in all executions is needed, Kit Thomas, the deputy chief of our capital habius unit and a member of the Burns litigation team, will speak about the Burns litigation and the defects in the 2025 protocol.

[00:08:08]We also have copies of the Burns complaint that will be available when you leave. For those who are watching on um Zoom, that um complaint is available in the chat.

[00:08:21]After Miss Thomas speaks, you will hear from Maria Deliberado, who is senior counsel at the ACLU's capital punishment project, who was with Mr. Kurthers on Thursday and was witness to the botched execution.

[00:08:42]Good afternoon. My name is Kit Thomas and I'm the deputy chief of the Capital Havius unit. Like Amy said, I'm here to talk about our lawsuit challenging Tennessee's 2025 lethal injection protocol. And I'll start with some background.

[00:08:59]In April 2022, Oscar Smith was an hour away from his execution.

[00:09:05]He was taking his last communion with his spiritual adviser and his attorney when the warden arrived to tell him that the execution was off.

[00:09:14]We later learned that in the hours before Mr. Smith's scheduled executions execution officials were scrambling to figure out whether the TDOC official in charge of lethal injection drug had ensured that the required testing had been done. As it turned out, it had not.

[00:09:34]Had an attorney in our office not asked for the testing results, TDOC would have proceeded with the execution in violation of its own protocol.

[00:09:43]After granting Mr. Smith a reprieve, Governor Lee ordered an independent investigation of TDOC's administration of executions by lethal injection.

[00:09:54]Specifically, he stated that he expected quote the Tennessee Department of Correction to leave no question that procedures are correctly followed.

[00:10:05]That investigation was conducted by Tennessee based law firm Butler Snow and was led by former US attorney Edward Stanton.

[00:10:14]Ultimately, the investigation revealed pervasive non-compliance by TDOC with its own lethal injection procedures.

[00:10:24]In the wake of the Stanton report, Governor Lee ordered TDOC to revise those procedures. And two years later, the department announced the 2025 lethal injection protocol.

[00:10:36]When our team first reviewed that new protocol, we were shocked to see that TDOC's primary change was to remove clear and specific procedural requirements and protections in favor of amorphous standards.

[00:10:52]TDOC didn't solve the problems identified in the Stanton report. It concealed them behind vagger rules and weaker safeguards.

[00:11:01]Our office immediately challenged the new protocol on behalf of several men on Tennessee's death row and that lawsuit remains pending in Davidson County Shan's report.

[00:11:12]The complaint raises a number of concerns including some that are particularly relevant to what happened to Tony Kurthers.

[00:11:20]One of those concerns was the obvious and well-known risk that TDOC's execution participants would be unable to establish reliable IV access.

[00:11:32]Difficulty establishing IV lines is not a hypothetical problem in executions.

[00:11:38]It's a known complication that has caused prolonged and botched executions across this country for years.

[00:11:46]That is precisely why competence, training, and clear procedures matter so much.

[00:11:54]The complaint specifically warned that the 2025 protocol failed to ensure that execution participants were sufficiently trained, qualified, and prepared to establish IV access safely and reliably.

[00:12:10]We also raised a concern about the protocol's failure to provide telephone access to the attorney witness should something go wrong during an execution.

[00:12:20]TDOC ignored those warnings.

[00:12:24]Repeatedly throughout the litigation, TDOC has been dismissive of our concerns as speculative, but there's nothing speculative about what happened to Tony Kurthers last Thursday.

[00:12:37]Last Thursday, multiple execution participants, including Dr. Mark Valor, repeatedly failed to establish IV access while Mr. Kurthers remained strapped to a gurnie for approximately 90 minutes, awaiting his execution.

[00:12:53]That failure wasn't unforeseeable. It was predicted, and TDOC went ahead anyway.

[00:13:00]What Mr. Kthers experienced last Thursday may be the starkkest example yet of TDOC's errors and ineptitude, but it was not an isolated incident. Even a brief review of TDOC's 2025 executions demonstrates that under the current protocol, the department cannot be trusted to carry out executions reliably in the name of the people of Tennessee.

[00:13:27]In its first execution under the new protocol, that of Oscar Smith in May of last year, TDOC failed to properly document Mr. Smith's EKG activity.

[00:13:39]Specifically, the department neglected to install a printer on their EKG machine, so there was no printout of his cardiac activity.

[00:13:48]In addition, TDOC claims to be unable to produce any readable electronic data from that EKG machine.

[00:13:57]Notably, TDOC's execution position admitted under oath that he didn't look at the EAG data when declaring Mr. Smith dead.

[00:14:07]Two months later, during Byron Black's execution in August, witnesses reported that Mr. Black lifted his head, moved his feet, groaned, and reported being in pain. By then, TDOC had acquired a printer for its EKG machine.

[00:14:25]Nevertheless, Dr. Fowler once again failed to consult the EKG data before pronouncing death.

[00:14:32]Had he done so, he would have seen that Mr. Black's heart was still beating at the time he was declared dead.

[00:14:41]Which brings us to Mr. Kurther's botched execution attempt last Thursday.

[00:14:46]Last month, our off office office sent repeated requests to TDOC asking for confirmation that it did not plan to use expired drugs to execute Mr. Kurthers.

[00:14:58]Despite attorneys for the state having previously offered assurances that they would not use expired drugs in an earlier execution, TDOC conspicuously refused to provide any such asurances to Mr. Kurthers.

[00:15:13]A refusal to provide important information is unfortunately typical for TDOC.

[00:15:19]It's only by chance that we know that TDOCC's execution physician, Dr. Mark Valor, is underqualified.

[00:15:28]Normally, TDOC relies on a state secrecy law to prevent the public from learning the identities and qualifications of their execution participants.

[00:15:39]Every once in a while though, TDOC slips up and unwittingly discloses one of those concealed identities.

[00:15:47]During the execution of Mr. Black, a TDOC official did just that when he named Dr. Fowler in front of media witnesses.

[00:15:58]During our deposition of Dr. Valor. He admitted that he had placed a central line only a handful of times more than a decade ago and that during one procedure he had experienced complications.

[00:16:11]He also admitted that he doesn't have privileges to set central lines at any hospital in the country.

[00:16:19]Attorneys for TDOC were in the room defending that deposition when Dr. Fowler made those admissions. They knew he wasn't competent to place a central line and yet they continued to pay him to serve as their physician for the execution of Tony Kurthers.

[00:16:37]Before I turn things over to Maria, I want to re-emphasize one point. TDOC was warned.

[00:16:45]For more than a year, we warned that the 2025 protocol failed to ensure that execution participants were adequately trained and competent to establish IV access. We warned that the attorney witnesses needed prompt telephone access in the event something went wrong. TDOC dismissed our warnings and Mr. Kurthers paid the price. Thank you.

[00:17:15]Good afternoon. Thanks for being here.

[00:17:17]Uh, as Amy mentioned, my name is Maria Deliberado. I am senior counsel with the ACLU and I represent Tony Kurthers. And I want to talk about Tony Kurthers because I don't represent any other client in Tennessee. I've been a capital defense lawyer for 20 years practicing primarily in Florida and Tony is my priority. And not only did I bear while Tony was tortured last week, but for the last eight week been asking Governor Lee and the attorney general to do basic forensic testing to prove what Tony's been saying for 30 years, that he didn't commit this crime. So, we already had an execution set that was going to be of someone who was likely innocent, who had maintained his innocence, and who the state refused to answer basic questions about. What happened next was beyond barbaric. And I spoke to a lot of you after the execution on Thursday at the execution attempt, and I'm happy to answer questions, and I'll walk through a few things that have stood out to me over the last five days as I've continued to process this horror.

[00:18:26]the telephone.

[00:18:28]I can't explain to you how absurd it is that an attorney for a death row client who is about to be executed can't get access to a telephone. Let me tell you what happened. So, I knew that there was a phone in the chamber in the execution chamber and I had a phone number written down on my arm so that I could use it in case I didn't have my notepad in case something went wrong. It became clear very early on that they weren't going to be able to establish access. I noticed that the Department of Corrections said they quickly established access in the right arm. I wouldn't describe it as quick. Um it took about seven minutes for them to first get Venus access in his right arm. Then they moved to the left side and it was immediately apparent that this was not going well. I could see the looks on the faces of the personnel. They were exerting physical force, grunting, move, trying to like get the vein into Tony's body over and over, asking for a bigger needle, a smaller needle, a different needle. Each needle clink clink clink into the little tray on the receptacle.

[00:19:37]>> It's really difficult to describe to you all because you weren't in the room.

[00:19:42]It was absolute agony from an emotional standpoint. and then it became physical.

[00:19:48]So once it became clear that they were unable to establish access, I leaned over to the warden and I asked him, "How long are you going to let this go on?"

[00:19:55]And he said, "Until they tell me to stop." And at that point, I said, "I need to use the phone." He didn't direct me to the phone that was behind him. The attorney general in the room who had a cell phone in his pocket didn't offer me his cell phone. The warden who had a cell phone in his pocket didn't offer me his cell phone. Instead, they make me go out of the chamber away from my client.

[00:20:16]The only person in the room who is there to speak for him, they take me out. They take me to the death watch cells.

[00:20:22]There's a lot of panic. What phone?

[00:20:23]Where should we take her? Where should we go? They first go out, then we come back in.

[00:20:28]There's phones that Mr. Kthers had used to call me over the last couple of days since when he was in that death watch chamber. They were on the floor and they weren't plugged in. They had to plug in a telephone for me to be able to use it.

[00:20:43]We're standing there, my client is being tortured in the next room and I'm waiting for the telephone lights to light up so that I can call the lawyers on the outside and tell them it is going horribly wrong. That is inexcusable.

[00:20:55]There is no excuse for that when the attorney general is pulling a phone out of his pocket and calling his co-consel.

[00:21:02]We were able, of course, to get word on the outside to what was happening. I was notified that the doctor who had came in and introduced himself as Dr. Fowler to Mr. Kthers that he was not qualified to place the central line and there was discussion as to whether that's what he was going to do next. So when I I reported what was happening and my understanding was they were going to be filing in the courts and reaching out to the governor to stop this execution. So when we went back in there was discussion about whether or not he was going to place the central line. I objected. I said he's not qualified.

[00:21:35]He's admitted. So he snaps back at me.

[00:21:38]He, Dr. Fowler, who was supposed to be doing this procedure, snaps back. I am too qualified. And the warden tells him to do his job and tells me to let him.

[00:21:47]They start the process. Before they do the central line, the doctor asks, "Is anybody here qualified to assess jugular access?" The doctor The doctor's asking that question. One of the other people on the medical team said yes. They turned the legs down. They got a vein finder. They tried to search on Tony's neck or a vein and he said, "We are not able to get jugular access." They continued. They searched his feet. They searched his hands. I I lost count of how many times they had hoked him. I certainly hope that the department kept the number of syringes that they used because I can still hear the clinking in the receptacle and it was a lot.

[00:22:30]So when the doctor's deciding now he's going to place a central line, he pushes lidocaine into Tony's chest. Before he does that, he says, "Does anyone know if the patient is allergic to lidocaine?"

[00:22:43]The patient, this is a doctor who took an oath to do no harm and is about to kill a man and calls him the patient.

[00:22:51]Nobody knows the answer to that question. They ask Tony, he's like, "I don't think so. He's in obvious distress." He they give him the lidocaine and it takes about five minutes. The doctor says, "We're going to wait five minutes." I again demand to use the phone. We can't use the phone in the chamber. Can't use the phone in anyone's pocket. So, we walk all the way back out, go back out, and I use the phone again, and I explain what's going on. We go back inside. It is an hour has elapsed at this point.

[00:23:21]And they are getting ready, Dr. Fowler is getting ready to try to insert the central line in Tony's chest.

[00:23:28]He gets his scalpel and he starts pressing and he says, "Can you feel that?" And Tony says, "It hurts. It hurts." And the doctor says, "It's just pressure." And he cuts him.

[00:23:43]And y'all that were out there heard the moaning and the groaning. And I saw the blood and the puncture wound. And he couldn't get it in.

[00:23:55]And he tried again. saw a second puncture wound. More groaning, moaning.

[00:24:01]He's absolutely oblivious. This doctor is oblivious to the fact that he is causing agony to Mr. Kthers.

[00:24:10]And eventually, he says, "I can't get a central line." They still don't stop.

[00:24:16]They go back to the same arm where there's already an IV and they start poking in Tony's shoulder. He's been stabbed in the chest twice now, at least.

[00:24:26]They keep going in the shoulder.

[00:24:29]They say that they have access in the shoulder. I can see blood filling the back line. It doesn't seem like access to me, but they say they have access.

[00:24:39]It's uh and I don't have my notes in front of me for the exact time, but it was about 11:30 at this point. 11:28, 11:30. We'd been in that room since 10:22.

[00:24:52]They step back, seemingly content that after over an hour of torturing Mr. Kthers, they get a second line. But again, blood is filling the line. The warden steps out. The warden steps back.

[00:25:04]Everyone is just standing in the room.

[00:25:07]Tony is in agony. He's in unimaginable distress. Then the phone in the execution chamber rings. I hear the warden answer it.

[00:25:16]And he's just I can only hear his side.

[00:25:19]So he's Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. And he hangs up. And I at this point I'm not I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if they're going to continue at this point. The level of incompetence and cruelty that I've witnessed, nothing would have surprised me in that moment if I'm being honest. But the warden said, "We're not doing this today."

[00:25:39]He said, "We're not doing this." And I said, "Today." And he said, "Not now."

[00:25:44]Is all he would say. And then they he directed the team to take the IVs out of Tony and to take him back to his cell.

[00:25:50]Tony was in agony when the IVs came out.

[00:25:52]There was a lot of blood coming out through the lines and they took him to medical and they escorted us out of the prison. And then of course many of you were with me outside when we learned when I learned for the first time on camera talking to a lot of you that the reprieve was for a year. And I am grateful that the governor stopped this barbaric event and gave us a year. And I again I I am here for Tony. And now what we have to do in that year is to let him heal emotionally, physically, and to continue to fight to prove what he's been saying for 30 years is that he's innocent of this crime. So it is my strong hope that the next thing I hear from the attorney general or from the governor is we are going to allow the DNA testing that we have been fighting against for so long. and we are going to finally be able to show what Tony has been saying. And so the what I've what I'm doing now and what I've been trying to do is get a doctor in to see Tony more difficult than you would think. I've already made an ask and it hasn't been granted yet.

[00:27:00]What are they hiding? Why can't we have medical access of an independent medical doctor to our client? Why is he still subjected to the treatment the medical treatment at the Tennessee Department of Corrections who so badly badly tried to end his life last week?

[00:27:17]I am committed to Tony's case. We are not going anywhere and we will get to the bottom of this. Thank you.

[00:27:29]Executions carried out in the name of the people of Tennessee must meet the highest standards of competence and reliability.

[00:27:39]Both the ongoing litigation and the department's track record show repeated failures, ignored warnings, and preventable harm.

[00:27:49]Again, the torture inflicted on Mr. Pther's last week was not just predictable.

[00:27:54]It was predicted and TDOC should have prevented it.

[00:28:00]The Tennessee courts are in the process of reviewing the constitutionality of TDOC's 2025 lethal injection protocol.

[00:28:09]The courts must have time to complete that review, complete the review of our allegations and our complaint and the events of last Thursday to determine whether the state can reliably and competently execute its citizens.

[00:28:24]We ask Governor Lee to give time for the courts to complete that review and to do their job.

[00:28:31]I suspect there will be people who have some questions. If you want to direct it to one of us, let us know.

[00:28:38]>> Michaela Redmond, Action News 5 out of Memphis. Maria, I just have some follow-up questions. I was there. We spoke last Thursday. Um, first of all, how is Tony now? I know you were running back to tell him the news, also to get a checkup on him and medical. What what can you share about all of that?

[00:28:54]>> I mean, again, I'm not going to share much about my attorney client conversations with him, but he remains in distress and we are trying to get a doctor in to see him.

[00:29:05]>> Um, have you guys learned anything through discovery um and any of the lawsuits that you have about the process in which TDOC hires their doctors, uh, the members of the execution team, anything like that? because I know that they had disclosed some documents about the protocol going into it, but have you learned about anything regarding qualifications to be hired there?

[00:29:26]>> Um, besides what is included in the 2025 lethal injection protocol about the qualifications and requirements for their IB team? No, they rely on their state secrecy law to protect that information.

[00:29:46]I have a question about the um prior to this, you know, there was the concern about the expiration on the drugs and that is currently at that issue is currently at the appeals court. Is that right? But the expiration like through that through the Knoxville pace.

[00:30:09]I'm not well informed enough about that to answer questions about it, but I do believe that there's a case at the Court of Appeals from the Eastern District.

[00:30:16]Yeah, >> sir.

[00:30:20]>> Yeah. Um, obviously he has the one-year reprieve in this case. Um, if that one year comes up and they reschedu uh another possible execution of Mr. Kers, will your team be fighting to possibly call for an eth amendment cruel and unusual punishment as to a possible second try at executing Mr. Kthers?

[00:30:42]>> Yes, we will evaluate all of available legal options for Mr. Kthers and that is certainly something that's on the table.

[00:30:48]But I certainly hope that within the next year we will get to do this DNA testing that we've been asking for and get all of the records about the career paid informant that helped to frame Mr. for others so that we won't even need to get there. But yes, all options are on the table.

[00:31:05]>> If nothing changes with TDOC, what concerns you the most?

[00:31:10]>> I'm going to for I mean for Mr. Kurthers, again, I think I've been clear sort of in terms of what I think is next for him. I will let these lawyers who represent many other folks in Tennessee, >> if nothing changes, this exact same thing could happen. We have an execution scheduled in August. There's nothing to suggest that this exact same thing, these exact same events wouldn't play out to Daryl Hines. Um, in April of 2022, they hadn't tested the drugs.

[00:31:40]You know, if nothing changes, if we have no asurances, you know, we made repeated requests that they confirmed that they weren't using expired drugs, they refused to provide those asurances, I think anything is on the table and all of it would be torturous.

[00:31:57]What does this process look like for you guys? I know that execution is pretty much right around the corner, but the courts obviously need time to go through stuff. What processes and steps are you guys taking to try and, you know, prevent some of this from repeating itself coming up?

[00:32:10]>> I mean, the lawsuit, right, the litigation that we filed, the complaint, you'll get it as you leave, was filed last March. And since last March, we have been trying to hold TDOC accountable, trying to hold the state accountable. Um, and like I said, in drafting this new protocol, they didn't remedy any of the issues that were identified in the Stanton report. They just obscured them. Um, vagger standards, less asurances, fewer rules. And so if you have fewer rules, there are less rules for you to break. Um so we will continue to litigate in Davidson County Chancery Court um and hope to be able to hold TDOC accountable.

[00:33:01]>> Your question, however, speaks to why we need a reprieve from the governor. That is to say, there are execution dates set um this year. So without a reprieve um that litigation won't have a chance to be completely heard and the courts won't have a chance to get to the bottom of all these issues. So we appreciate your question because that's that's >> Have you guys reached out to the governor directly? You know, have you tried to send emails, phone calls to his office?

[00:33:26]>> We were in touch with his office on Thursday and we will remain in touch trying to, you know, press him asking him for this pause.

[00:33:35]Is there any um any evidence showing that TDOC is actually following through with preserving the evidence from the Dutch execution? Because I know that was a part of Friday's uh hearing with Chancellor Perkins.

[00:33:46]>> We have asked that everything be preserved and we trust that they will follow the court order, but that's that's where we are.

[00:33:55]Amy, >> what's the status of the lawsuit right now? I know it had been set for trial and >> there are a couple of outstanding motions um that were waiting to be ruled upon. So we are sort of in a holding pattern.

[00:34:17]>> There's no no new trial date.

[00:34:19]>> There is a new trial date. It's currently set for the end of February 2027, I believe.

[00:34:34]We really appreciate all of you coming.

[00:34:36]We appreciate your attention to the supportive matter. Thank you for being here.