Following a third-party review of lethal injection operations at the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC), Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has directed several proactive steps to ensure TDOC adheres to established protocol, which will occur in the following sequence:
Make staffing changes at the department’s leadership level.
Hire a permanent TDOC commissioner in January 2023.
The new department leadership will revise the state’s lethal injection protocol, in consultation with the Governor’s office and the Tennessee Attorney General’s office.
The new department leadership will review all training associated with the revised protocol and make appropriate operational updates.
Upon launching the independent investigation in May, Lee issued temporary reprieves for five executions scheduled to take place in 2022. The Tennessee Supreme Court will be responsible for setting new execution dates after the Governor’s reprieves expire. Currently, Tennessee has no scheduled executions in 2023.