Tennessee's lethal injection procedures are facing renewed scrutiny after two failed executions this year, including the September attempt to execute Christa Pike. A CBS News examination of state protocols dating to 2007 found that the instructions had become increasingly vague. The current protocol is the fourth version adopted over the past two decades.
Before 2025, the procedures ran to more than 100 pages, covering execution teams, their responsibilities, the drugs involved and practices for inserting intravenous lines and administering chemicals. The version made public early in 2025 contains 44 pages. Kit Thomas, deputy chief of the capital habeas unit at the Federal Public Defender's Office in Nashville, told CBS News the protocol had shrunk in both length and detail. Thomas, a critic of the current procedures, said her greatest familiarity is with versions used since 2018.
Thomas argued that reducing the instructions could make it harder to hold officials accountable when an execution goes wrong. Changes affecting the intravenous team were particularly consequential, she said. Earlier protocols described how team members should place catheters, respond to difficulties administering drugs, check equipment and confirm that IV lines were flowing properly. The 2025 version describes the team's primary responsibility in a single line, requiring it to establish functioning IV lines for the lethal chemicals.
Training requirements also changed. Previous versions required monthly exercises that included inserting an IV line into a volunteer acting as the condemned prisoner. The requirement to practice establishing a line was removed in 2025. Execution personnel encountered difficulties establishing IV access in both failed attempts this year. During an attempt in May, the team spent more than an hour trying unsuccessfully before Gov. Bill Lee granted the prisoner a one-year reprieve.
Randy Spivey, one of Pike's lawyers, said personnel spent an hour attempting to establish her IV line, using several needles. After the drugs were administered, Pike reported arm pain and said her vein felt as though it would burst. She received two doses of the lethal drug. When the second dose failed, officials halted the execution and provided medical care. Pike had been sentenced to death for her role in the 1995 torture and murder of her 19-year-old classmate, Colleen Slemmer.
Following Pike's failed execution, the Department of Corrections said it had followed every step of the state's established, lawful protocol. Thomas and several death row prisoners had alleged in a lawsuit filed last year that a pattern of noncompliance at the department created a high risk of prisoners being tortured to death during lethal injection. CBS News sought comment from the department.
Lee postponed the next scheduled execution after Pike survived and ordered a protocol review. He previously paused executions and sought an independent review in 2022 after authorities discovered an oversight involving testing of lethal injection chemicals in Oscar Smith's case. That review identified inadequate expertise, guidance and counsel surrounding the state's lethal injection process.
Thomas said she considers the problems systemic and unlikely to be resolved simply by revising the protocol again. She told CBS News that the two failed attempts reflected dangers raised beforehand in the lawsuit.
