Tennessee death row inmates challenge plan to fast-track executions
By
Zachary Thorton and Warren Duzak
27 February 2018
Thirty-three death row inmates in Tennessee have filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality and legality of the state’s new execution protocol. The challenge follows state Attorney General Herbert Slatery’s request to the state Supreme Court to schedule eight executions by June 1, before one of the state’s lethal injection drugs expires.
Tennessee has not carried out an execution since that of Cecil Johnson in 2009. If carried out, the state’s efforts to fast-track eight executions would be the most since 1939, when Tennessee sent 10 prisoners to their deaths between January and August of that year.
As Tennessee moves ahead with plans for assembly-line state killings, one study shows prosecutorial misconduct in capital punishment cases that ranks one state prosecutor as among the four worst in the nation.
“Tennessee is not only a state rushing to execute but one where misconduct by prosecutors in death penalty cases are being overturned,” the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) reported.
Three inmates had already been scheduled for execution at the beginning of this year, with two being scheduled after the June 1 deadline. None of the three are referenced in Slatery’s court request.
In his court statement, Slatery wrote, “Years of delay between sentencing and execution undermines confidence in our criminal justice system.”
Supreme Court spokeswoman Barbara Peck confirmed Slatery’s filing was received, stating, “In all of these cases, previous execution dates have been set and the defendants have completed the three-tier appeals process: direct appeal, post-conviction relief, and federal habeas corpus. The motion will…