ACLU Challenges Denial of Forensic Testing as Tennessee Moves to Execute a Potentially Innocent Man
Tennessee plans to execute Tony Carruthers on May 21 despite uncertainty of his guilt, which untested DNA and fingerprint evidence could clarify.
MEMPHIS – The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Tennessee, and Quarles & Brady LLP, filed a lawsuit today challenging the state’s denial of fingerprint testing in the case of Tony Carruthers, a potentially innocent man on death row whom the state plans to execute on May 21. The lawsuit, brought under Section 1983, challenges the recent denial of a motion to test unidentified fingerprint evidence that does not match Mr. Carruthers. The complaint also challenges the court’s refusal to consider new evidence that the prosecutors hid the fact that its main witness was a paid confidential informant as well as a statement from the now-released co-defendant exonerating Mr. Carruthers and pointing to an alternate suspect.
Forensic testing in Mr. Carruthers’ case is critical to determining if the state convicted the right person. Mr. Carruthers’ conviction was based entirely on speculative testimony of convicted felons and a paid informant. There has never been any physical evidence linking Mr. Carruthers to the crime and he has maintained his innocence for the 30 years he’s been on death row. Meanwhile, there is unidentified DNA on evidence found with the victims and six fingerprints recovered from the crime scene that do not match Mr. Carruthers.
One of the individuals responsible for the murders later stated that Mr. Carruthers was not involved and instead pointed investigators to another man. None of the unidentified forensic evidence has ever been tested against this alternative suspect. Earlier this month, the ACLU filed a motion in the Tennessee Supreme Court demanding that the DNA evidence be tested. In September 2021, Mr. Carruthers filed a motion seeking comparison of the fingerprint evidence to the alternative suspect. The fingerprint motion was denied on April 16, with the court relying on procedural rules to ignore the significant new evidence. A decision on the DNA motion is still pending, and if the Tennessee Supreme Court denies this critical testing, the federal civil rights complaint will be amended to include the DNA claims.
“The state of Tennessee cannot execute a man unless it is absolutely sure that he is guilty of the crime he is accused of. Tony’s execution would be a gross miscarriage of justice that is entirely avoidable with basic forensic testing,” said Maria DeLiberato, senior counsel at the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project. “The state holds DNA and fingerprint evidence that could help determine who committed this crime, but instead of testing it, it is prioritizing finality over the truth. This refusal is especially concerning in a case where for 30 years the state hid evidence about the status of its confidential informant, whose false grand jury testimony was the sole basis for the state to seek an indictment. Refusing to test this evidence before killing someone who may be innocent should be chilling to us all.”
Key aspects of the state’s case went unchallenged at trial because Mr. Carruthers was forced to represent himself and had to proceed without a lawyer. His jury was never told about the unidentified prints and DNA, that Mr. Carruthers’ prints and DNA were not found at the house, or that the person who is most likely responsible for the crime has never been compared to the available forensic evidence.
Mr. Carruthers’ co-defendant was granted a new trial directly due to the prejudice stemming from Mr. Carruthers’ forced self-representation and was later offered and accepted a plea deal to reduced charges. He was released in late 2015, while Mr. Carruthers is facing execution in less than a month.
Read more about Mr. Carruthers’ case here: https://www.aclu.org/cases/tony-von-carruthers-v-state-of-tennessee
Read the clemency petition here: https://www.aclu.org/documents/carruthers-clemency-petition
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