NASHVILLE, TN – Nine men on death row in Tennessee have filed a legal challenge against the state’s newly-adopted lethal injection protocol, arguing that it exposes them to an unconstitutional risk of extreme pain and suffering.
The complaint, filed in Davidson County Chancery Court, highlights the well-documented dangers of pentobarbital poisoning, as well as Tennessee’s history of botched executions and reckless mismanagement of lethal injection procedures.
“The evidence keeps piling up to show that pentobarbital poisoning is excruciatingly painful,” said Amy Harwell, an attorney representing the plaintiffs. “Tennessee appears to have picked this method only because they were able to get their hands on pentobarbital, not because its use for executions complies with the Constitution or state law.”
The lawsuit argues that execution by pentobarbital poses a high likelihood of extreme suffering, citing a recent study of over 200 autopsies of executed individuals—including 58 killed with pentobarbital. The study found that 48 of those 58 individuals suffered from pulmonary edema, a condition in which fluid builds up in the lungs, creating “a sensation of suffocating or drowning that has been likened by experts to the sensation intentionally induced by the practice of waterboarding—an unambiguous form of outright torture.”
In addition to pulmonary edema, pentobarbital executions present the risk of vascular damage and leakage of the drug into surrounding tissues, both of which can be severely painful. The complaint further asserts that recent evidence suggests individuals executed by pentobarbital remain conscious long enough to experience the physical trauma caused by the drug, suffering extreme pain before losing awareness.
“The Trump administration’s own Department of Justice found pentobarbital so problematic that it withdrew its federal execution protocol using the drug in January 2025,” the complaint states. Yet, just as the federal government was abandoning the method, Tennessee adopted it, despite the risks.
The complaint also takes aim at the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC), which it describes as having an “internal culture of recklessness and noncompliance” when it comes to executing prisoners. The filing details a decades-long pattern of botched executions, mismanaged lethal injection protocols, and inadequate oversight.
“Tennessee has burned through at least five now-discarded ‘protocols’ for performing executions by lethal injection,” the complaint states, “each of which collapsed under the weight of its own flaws and mismanagement after no more than, at most, a few executions.”
The lawsuit identifies significant gaps in the new protocol, including the absence of requirements for training, qualifications, and oversight of execution personnel, as well as a failure to establish safeguards to ensure that the pentobarbital is properly obtained, stored, and administered. These omissions, the plaintiffs argue, further increase the risk of a torturous and unlawful execution.
“We have seen so many problems in Tennessee’s attempts to kill prisoners using lethal chemicals,” Harwell said. “There is no basis in either the protocol itself or TDOC’s history to believe this new method won’t cause a torturous death.”
Prisoners Facing Execution Dates
Among the plaintiffs are two individuals with scheduled execution dates in the coming months:
Oscar Smith is set to be executed on May 22. Smith, who has long maintained his innocence, was just 30 minutes away from execution in 2022 when Governor Bill Lee halted the process due to revelations that TDOC had misled courts and the public about its drug testing procedures.
Byron Black, scheduled for execution on August 5, is an elderly prisoner with deteriorating mental and physical health, including an intellectual disability.
The other plaintiffs include individuals with serious mental illnesses, documented histories of childhood trauma, and, in some cases, plausible claims of wrongful conviction:
- Rev. Kevin Burns, convicted under a felony murder theory despite not being the actual killer, has become an ordained minister and leads The Church of Life, the only death-row-run church in the country.
- Jon Hall, who suffers from severe mental illness, has been deemed incapable of handling his own affairs by a federal court.
- Kennath Henderson, an artist and devout Christian, was sentenced to death after his attorneys failed to present evidence of his untreated mental illness.
- Henry Hodges, diagnosed with PTSD and bipolar disorder, self-mutilated in 2021 during a psychotic episode. His attorneys argue he is incompetent for execution.
- Darrell Hines, convicted based on questionable evidence, maintains his innocence.
- Farris Morris, a 70-year-old man with severe medical conditions, including brain damage, has the support of the victim’s family in opposing his execution.
- Glenn Rogers, who suffered severe abuse as a child, has long struggled with mental illness.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to halt all executions in Tennessee while it reviews the state’s new protocol and the overwhelming evidence that its use of pentobarbital violates constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
“Until the court has had an opportunity to consider this new protocol and all of the evidence that shows its use will violate the Constitution,” Harwell said, “there should be no executions in Tennessee.”
