ACLU ramps up effort to have Memphis man removed from death row as execution nears

The American Civil Liberties Union is continuing its campaign to have Tony Carruthers pulled from death row. Inside the National Civil Rights Museum on May 6, the ACLU and multiple other criminal justice reform groups, clergy, and Carruthers' family called for the public to ask Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to halt the execution.

Carruthers has been on death row since his conviction in 1996. He was arrested in 1994 for kidnapping and burying three people in a Memphis cemetery. He was charged with three counts of first-degree murder alongside two other men, James and Jonathan Montgomery.

Jonathan Montgomery told police, prior to committing suicide while awaiting trial, he was part of a plan to bury those three bodies under a grave that would have a casket formally buried on top of the victims. Jonathan also led Memphis police to the site after they were granted a warrant to exhume the casket.

Carruthers is slated to be executed on May 21. As the execution date draws near, the ACLU has made multiple moves to have the execution stalled. They have asked Lee for clemency. They have also filed motions requesting DNA evidence and fingerprints be tested.

In the more than 30 years since his conviction, Carruthers has maintained his innocence. If he were to be executed, he would be the first Tennessee defendant to represent himself at trial and receive the death penalty in over 100 years.

"Right now, we do not know the most important fact in this case: Who actually committed this crime?" said Lucas Cameron Vaughn, the interim legal director for the ACLU of Tennessee. "But I want to start by being very clear about what we do know. We know that there is no physical evidence that matches Tony. Investigators recovered fingerprints from the home where the victims were kidnapped, and locations exactly where you would expect a kidnapper to have touched. None of those fingerprints matched Tony. To this day, they remain unidentified."

Vaughn also said prosecutors hid evidence that Alfredo B. Shaw, a man who was in jail at the same time as Carruthers and testified that Carruthers told him about the crime, was a paid informant. He added that jurors from the original trial told the ACLU "they would not have voted for a death sentence if they knew the key witness was a paid informant or that there was DNA evidence that did not match Tony."

"With everything that we do know, the question becomes why are we not using the tools available to answer what we don't know?" Vaughn said. "The evidence exists, and the questions are obvious, but the state has refused to seek answers."

James Montgomery, who was convicted alongside Carruthers, was later granted a new trial. Instead of going to trial, he pleaded guilty and identified someone else as the person who committed the crime. James Montgomery was released from prison in December 2015, according to the Tennessee Department of Corrections website.

What happens next in the effort to stop an execution?

Questions about DNA testing were brought to the Tennessee Supreme Court by the ACLU, but that court refused to hear it and said they needed to file the request elsewhere. Vaughn said the ACLU is now bringing that request to Shelby County's criminal courts.

Even if the courts allow the DNA evidence to be tested, it is not clear whether they would view that evidence favorably in potential proceedings to exonerate Carruthers. In another case, a Shelby County Criminal Court judge said implicating another person did not exonerate the defendant. Following a conviction, the burden shifts to defense attorneys to prove their clients' innocence.

"I can't really speculate as to what the courts will do," Vaughn said, when asked if the courts may consider exoneration if the DNA evidence is tested. "But we are asking them to test this evidence. That is our main concern right now. As to what they might do in the future, I can't say."

Carruthers' sister, Tonya Carruthers, also spoke during the press conference. She said her brother is innocent of the crime he was convicted of, and called for Lee to halt the execution.

"Innocent until proven guilty never ever happened for my brother. That did not happen for him," she said. "I don't know if any of you are as old as I am, probably not, but he was proven guilty in the media before his case ever began. There's a gospel song that says, 'Been lied on, cheated, talked about, mistreated.' I hope that never happens to you because you don't know how easy it is to be found guilty because of your association. He was friends with the convicted, admitted killer, and the people who said that they committed it with him, but he didn't do it."

Lucas Finton covers crime, policing, jails, the courts and criminal justice policy for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached by phone or email: (901)208-3922 and [email protected], and followed on X @LucasFinton.