Gov. Lee Provides Update on Independent Review of TDOC Protocol

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Today, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee provided a status update on the independent, third-party review of the lethal injection protocol at the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC).

“We have received the third-party report and will now conduct a full assessment of the findings and determine the appropriate next steps,” said Lee. “To ensure continued transparency for Tennesseans, we will publicly share the report and any additional actions when our internal assessment is complete, no later than December 31. I thank the independent investigators for their thorough work on this extremely serious matter.”

On May 2, 2022, Tennessee retained former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton to conduct an independent review and recommend corrective actions, following an oversight in adhering to the TDOC lethal injection protocol.

Upon launching the independent investigation, Lee issued temporary reprieves for five executions scheduled to take place in 2022. The Tennessee Supreme Court is responsible for scheduling execution dates, and the Court has not yet rescheduled the 2022 executions that were paused by the Governor. Currently, Tennessee has no scheduled executions in 2023.