Tennessee execution drug search revealed

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — When multiple pharmaceutical companies objected to Tennessee using their drugs to kill death row inmates several years back, the scramble to find lethal injection chemicals needed to carry out state-sanctioned executions grew frantic.

“What are your thoughts on acquiring it through a veterinarian?” an unidentified official wrote in a 2017 text. “They sometimes have better access to it since it’s widely used for euthanasia in animals.”

“How would that even work?” asked a separate employee.

“They buy the stuff by the case,” the first official later responded.

These text messages emerged among hundreds of documents released this week as part of a blistering independent report on Tennessee’s lethal injection system. The communications span years, depicting a state determined to push forward with executions despite roadblocks to obtaining the drugs and questions about whether revamped procedures would keep inmates from feeling pain as they are put to death.

The result: The state put a single employee with no medical background in charge of procuring the drugs, and the state’s own flawed lethal injection rules and communication lapses meant one of the required tests for the drugs wasn’t conducted during any of seven executions since 2018 — two by lethal injection, five by electric chair. Under Tennessee’s rules, the drugs need to be tested regardless of the method selected.

Earlier this year, Republican Gov. Bill Lee paused all executions after confirming the state failed to ensure its lethal injection drugs were properly tested before the scheduled execution of Oscar Smith. Lee halted Smith’s execution an hour before he was supposed to die.

The governor later called for the third-party investigation and report, which was released Wednesday.

That independent review also found no evidence the state provided the pharmacy in charge of testing the drugs with a copy of its lethal injection protocol. Nor was there any evidence the state ever told the pharmacy it had to test for endotoxins on all injection chemicals until the night before Smith’s planned execution, the report said.

The report showed that the state ultimately opted not to buy pentobarbital from a veterinarian in 2017, but did consider importing the barbiturate internationally before scuttling that over logistical concerns.

Reliance on midazolam has faced growing criticism after its use with other chemicals in executions that went wrong in other states.