Anthony Darrell Dugard Hines v. Tennessee

On May 21, 2026, the State of Tennessee attempted, but ultimately failed, to execute Mr. Tony Von Carruthers. For over an hour, the Tennessee Department of Correction’s contracted medical personnel repeatedly pierced Mr. Carruthers’ body with needles in his arms, hand, feet, chest, and neck, as he bled, moaned, and cried out in pain. After Mr. Carruthers was returned to his cell—with severe physical and psychological injuries—he told his attorney that the physician who oversaw the State’s failed intravenous catheterization process, “Physician A,” “was hurting me and he knew he was hurting me.” Pet. App. H, p. A-173 (Mot. Ex. 13) at 2–6. Mr. Carruthers is now attempting to recover from this traumatic ordeal, with the benefit of a year-long reprieve from Tennessee’s governor. Petitioner warned the State that exactly such a scenario was likely to occur. In March 2025—long before the Tennessee Supreme Court set Petitioner’s execution date—Petitioner and other Tennessee death-row prisoners filed a Complaint in Tennessee chancery court alleging that (1) Tennessee’s newly unveiled lethal injection protocol had dangerously weakened the state’s minimum qualifications applicable to its intravenous catheterization personnel; (2) the Tennessee Department of Correction had engaged in a years-long, knowing failure to adhere to its own execution protocols, spanning multiple executions by lethal injection; and (3) the Department had exhibited a practice of failing to replace execution participants who had proved to be unfit. See Pet. App. E, p. A-126 (Mot Ex. 2). Then, when Physician A was deposed in that litigation, he revealed that he had, in fact, accepted his position without knowing that he would be expected to participate in intravenous catheterization and learned that fact for the first time during the deposition itself. Pet. App. E, p. A-126. He admitted that his relevant experience was limited and had occurred over a decade prior. Id. p. A-126. Despite these admissions, the State chose to continue to employ Physician A as its execution physician, and Mr. Carruthers suffered as a result. Petitioner is scheduled to be executed on August 13, 2026. Although the State has relied on its execution secrecy laws to withhold absolute confirmation that it will continue to rely on Physician A, all of the available, uncontroverted evidence suggests that it will do so. Petitioner asked the Tennessee courts to require the State to replace Physician A with a qualified physician. The Tennessee Supreme Court, however, refused, citing (1) its reading of this Court’s caselaw as effectively foreclosing all Eighth Amendment claims based on the dangers posed by unfit execution personnel and (2) its reliance on an ad hoc, newly created state procedural structure that deprives an individual in Petitioner’s position of the minimum necessary procedural safeguards in raising his constitutional issues, even where he initially and validly raised those concerns in timely litigation. Pet. App. A, p. A-1 (Order) at 4–7. The State of Tennessee’s position relies on a misreading of the law that has been sowing increasing confusion throughout state and federal courts. Moreover, the State’s newly adopted procedural structure violates the federal guarantees of due process, access to the courts, and enforceability of federal law in state tribunals. Given these rulings, Petitioner requests this Court grant certiorari to address the following Questions:

1. Does the Eighth Amendment permit a State to execute a person when the uncontroverted evidence demonstrates that the State intends to rely on unqualified and/or otherwise unfit personnel in a manner that will likely result in superadded, severe pain, suffering, and terror?

2. When considering an Eighth Amendment claim based on the risk of error by contracted execution personnel who are not otherwise government officials, are the contracted personnel entitled to a presumption of regularity?

3. Under the Fourteenth Amendment right to due process, the First Amendment right to access to the courts, and the Supremacy Clause, may a state court with jurisdiction to consider claims arising out of violations of federal constitutional law condition relief on an ad hoc, discretionary, and arbitrary procedural structure with no prior notice of the procedures to apply?