Tennessee officials have announced a new method for carrying out executions, which could allow the state to resume executions after a halt in 2022. The last scheduled execution was halted when it was discovered that correction officials were not following their own execution protocols.
The new protocol will use a single drug, pentobarbital, but details about the protocol were not made publicly available. Kelley Henry, chief of the federal public defender’s habeas unit, criticized the lack of transparency, saying that secrecy allowed the state to perform executions in violation of its own protocol.
The decision to halt the last execution came after Henry requested the results of purity and potency tests for the lethal injection drugs. Documents later showed that at least two people were aware that the drugs had not been tested, and an independent review revealed that the state had not complied with its own lethal injection process since 2018.
The state’s Department of Correction Commissioner, Frank Strada, said he is confident that the lethal injection process can proceed in compliance with departmental policy and state laws. However, Henry has requested that no new execution dates be set while a federal lawsuit challenging the state’s previous lethal injection protocol is ongoing.
The lawsuit, which was put on hold pending the state’s review and revision of the procedure, gives the inmates 90 days to review the new protocol and determine whether to amend their complaint. The U.S. Department of Justice is also reviewing the use of pentobarbital in its executions, and Henry highlighted that the drug can cause pulmonary edema, which has been likened to waterboarding.