US lawyers say man on death row could be executed with expired lethal drugs

Key points

• Lawyers for a Tennessee death row inmate say they are concerned the state may be planning to use expired lethal injection drugs at his execution on Thursday, amid growing concern across the country as states work to keep most information about their drugs secret.
• Tony Carruthers’s lawyers twice asked the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) last month whether it had secured the appropriate drugs for his execution date and to ensure the drugs had not expired.
• Assistant Attorney General John W Ayers’s response did not directly answer, but said the department will comply with its lethal injection protocol, which includes regular inventory of the drugs to monitor expiration dates.
• 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.
• The Tennessee Department of Correction declined to answer on Wednesday when asked by The Associated...