Tennessee paid nearly $1.2 million for execution drugs
The supplier and number of doses remain secret. Critics cite a lack of transparency after failed executions; the state rejects the criticism.
Symbolic image · Photo: Kaldari / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain (cropped and resized)
Tennessee has spent nearly $1.2 million on lethal injection drugs since January 2023, in two payments of $525,000 and $650,000. That is according to records obtained by The Tennessean and summarised on Oct. 26 by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI). The records do not show the supplier, how much pentobarbital was bought, the price per dose or expiration dates. Federal public defender Kit Thomas called it "an awful lot of money for the taxpayer to be expending without any additional information about it."
Since resuming executions in 2025, Tennessee has executed four people, while two attempts failed: Tony Carruthers in May and Christa Pike in late September. Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Pike was returned to prison on Oct. 10, and Gov. Bill Lee has halted executions pending an independent review. The Department of Correction said after the Pike case that it "followed every step" of its protocol, which it said "has been consistently effective"; Pike's lawyers dispute that.
Lawyers for death row prisoners asked a Nashville court on Oct. 22 to add facts from the failed executions to their lawsuit against the protocol. The state is seeking dismissal, arguing the concerns are speculative. Costs are high elsewhere too: Indiana paid nearly $1.3 million and Texas more than $775,000 for pentobarbital.