Tennessee set to execute first person forced to represent himself at trial in more than a century

Tony Carruthers’s lawyers say no evidence tied him to 1994 crimes he was convicted of and is mentally incompetent

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Tennessee is scheduled on Thursday to execute a prison inmate whose lawyers claim there was no physical evidence tying him to the crimes he was convicted of and is mentally incompetent. Additionally, the inmate’s lawyers believe that the state may be using expired lethal injection drugs to carry out the sentence.

Tony Carruthers, 57, was sentenced to death after being found guilty of the 1994 kidnappings and murders of Marcellos Anderson; his mother, Delois Anderson; and Frederick Tucker, in Memphis.