Image Credit: Canva
The Tennessee Conservative [By Olivia Lupia] –
After numerous lawsuits and a hiatus of more than two years due to a stay ordered by Governor Bill Lee, prison officials report they have almost completed crafting a new protocol for lethal injections.
Lee ordered a stay of a lethal injection one hour before its scheduled time in April of 2022 amidst reports that prison staff had failed to properly test the chemicals to be used. This led to Lee pausing all executions and requesting a full report reviewing execution protocols and processes.
The objections originated as far back as 2017 and mainly stemmed from defense attorneys who argued that Tennessee’s prior three-drug series violates constitutional bans on cruel and unusual punishment.
They claimed that a pharmaceutical supplier warned that the first of the three drugs, the sedative used to render unconsciousness, may not have a strong enough effect leading to the offender potentially being able to feel pain from the second and third drugs.
The second drug is meant to paralyze, which means if the first drug is ineffective, the offender could still be conscious but appear as if they experience no pain. The third drug, the lethal portion, can cause “sensations of drowning, suffocation, and chemical burning,” according to some of the inmates’ eyewitnesses and attorneys.
The new protocol is expected to be released in December or January though no details are yet available. Correction commissioner Frank Strada told lawmakers, “We’ve been working with the attorney general’s office on writing those protocols to make sure they’re sound.”
This ongoing review and criticism of the injection process has supposedly led more inmates to choose the electric chair, the other legal method of capital punishment legally allowed in the state if offenders were convicted before January 1999. All offenders on death row convicted from 1999 to present are subject to lethal injection as the primary method of execution after legislation in March of 2000.
It is unlikely executions will resume immediately once the new protocol is in place due to the ongoing litigation and the likelihood that the new changes will also result in legal challenges.
Olivia Lupia is a political refugee from Colorado who now calls Tennessee home. A proud follower of Christ, she views all political happenings through a Biblical lens and aims to utilize her knowledge and experience to educate and equip others. Olivia is an outspoken conservative who has run for local office, managed campaigns, and been highly involved with state & local GOPs, state legislatures, and other grassroots organizations and movements. Olivia can be reached at olivia@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
