From [DPIC] Tennessee executions could be on hold for years, as the state conducts an independent investigation into widespread non-compliance with its execution protocol and litigates the constitutionality of revisions expected to be made to its execution procedures. The anticipated delay, first reported by the Associated Press June 13, 2022, is a likely by-product of a decision by Governor Bill Lee to cancel all executions scheduled in the state for the remainder of 2022 and an agreement entered into by the Tennessee Attorney General's office in on-going litigation over the state’s execution protocol.

On April 21, 2022, Lee issued a last-minute reprieve that halted the scheduled execution of Oscar Smith, cryptically citing a “technical oversight” in the state’s execution process. Ten days later, after revelations that corrections officials had failed to test execution drugs for bacterial endotoxins before Smith’s execution, Lee announced that the state had retained former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton to conduct a third-party review of Tennessee’s execution process. 

Shortly thereafter, state prosecutors filed a notice in a pair of federal lawsuits filed by death-row prisoners Terry Lynn King and Donald Middlebrooks stating that “there may be factual inaccuracies or misstatements in some of [the state’s] filings” in response to the prisoners’ lethal-injection challenges. The prosecutors and counsel for the prisoners entered into an agreement to put the lawsuits on hold pending the completion of Stanton’s investigation and the amendment of the execution protocol. 

As part of the agreement, state prosecutors agreed not to seek an execution date for King or oppose a stay of execution for Middlebrooks if his previously halted execution is rescheduled at least until the district court reaches a decision on their challenges and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issues an opinion on appeal. Prosecutors further agreed to pause discovery until Stanton’s investigation and any revisions to the execution protocol are completed and not to seek an expedited pretrial or trial schedule in the litigation following the conclusion of the investigation.