Dear Governor,
Please stop the 21 May 2026 execution of Tony Carruthers. He was forced to represent himself at his 1996 trial and sentencing, after the judge lost patience with Tony Carruthers’ behaviour towards a series of lawyers appointed to represent him. Under international law, self-representation must not be forced upon a defendant, who cannot be deemed to have forfeited their right to a lawyer as a sanction for misconduct. Execution of a death sentence imposed in unfair proceedings amounts to a violation of the right to life as guaranteed under international human rights law.
Tony Carruthers’ self-representation was deemed so prejudicial to his co-defendant – tried with him and also convicted on three counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death – that he was granted a new trial. He was allowed to plead to lesser charges, was sentenced to 27 years in prison, and was released in 2015. Tony Carruthers was clearly prejudiced by his forced self-representation due to his lack of competence and his conduct in court, yet his convictions and death sentence have been upheld. Today, as far as is known, he is set to become the first person in over a century in the USA to be put to death after being forced to represent himself at trial.
Tony Carruthers has a severe mental illness (disability), which has been diagnosed as schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type, with symptoms including paranoid delusions and distorted thought processes. He also has serious brain damage. While said to be aware of his conviction and execution, he lacks a rational understanding of them, raising the prospect of an unconstitutional execution that also violates international law. Other aspects of his case presented in the clemency petition now before you raise further serious concerns. I appeal to you to grant clemency and to commute this death sentence.
Lisätietoa
Three people – two men and the mother of one of them – disappeared in Memphis, Tennessee, in late February 1994. A week later, their bodies were found beneath a newly interred coffin in a grave in a Memphis cemetery. Three men were charged with the murders. One of the men – who had led the police to the bodies – was found hanged in his jail cell before trial, his death ruled a suicide. The other two men – the brother of the man who had hanged himself and Tony Carruthers – were brought to a joint trial in April 1996. Both were convicted of three counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.
Before the trial, a series of lawyers were appointed to represent Tony Carruthers. Each was allowed to withdraw in the face of their client’s complaints against them. Eventually, in January 1996, the judge decided that he had forfeited his right to a lawyer and forced Carruthers to represent himself against his wishes and over his protests. After the ruling, Tony Carruthers offered to accept his most recent lawyer continuing to represent him (the lawyer himself was prepared to), to apologize, and to withdraw the accusations he had made against him. The judge refused, deciding that the defendant was merely seeking to further delay the trial. Three days later, during jury selection, the prosecution asked for a delay due to one of its witnesses being ill. The judge granted a three-month delay. Tony Carruthers made another request for a lawyer. The judge refused. In 2000, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that the judge was “fully justified in concluding that Carruthers had forfeited his right to counsel…” US law requires federal courts to give a very high level of deference to state court decisions, and under this standard the federal courts have denied Tony Carruthers relief and upheld his death sentence.
When the US Court of Appeals upheld the state court decisions in 2018 under this high level of deference, the three-judge panel showed its concern, stressing that “nothing in this opinion is intended to bless the state trial court’s actions or the merits of the Tennessee Supreme Court’s opinion affirming those actions”. It was “troubling”, it said, that the trial judge had “required Carruthers to proceed pro se through his capital murder trial without giving him the warnings typically required in the distinct context of a defendant’s affirmatively waiving his right to counsel.” One of the judges raised the issue of “mental illness” being the cause of a defendant’s misconduct and concluded that a criminal defendant must not be denied their right to counsel “as a form of punishment”.
International law requires that anyone facing the death penalty is provided “adequate legal assistance at all stages of the proceedings” and that this should go “above and beyond the protections afforded in non-capital cases.” The UN Human Rights Committee, the expert body established under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which the USA ratified in 1992, has emphasized that under the treaty “all accused of a criminal charge” have the right “in full equality” to defend themselves in person or through “legal counsel of their own choosing”. In noting that the right of a defendant to self-representation is “not absolute”, the Committee explained in its authoritative interpretation (General Comment 32) on the right to equality before the courts and to a fair trial under the ICCPR, that “the interests of justice may, in the case of a specific trial, require the assignment of a lawyer against the wishes of the accused, particularly in cases of persons substantially and persistently obstructing the proper conduct of trial, or facing a grave charge but being unable to act in their own interests”. Contrary to what happened in this case, the right to counsel cannot be forfeited and the defendant forced into self-representation as a sanction for improper conduct.
The use of the death penalty against individuals with serious mental disabilities is prohibited under international law and standards. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, signed by the USA in 2009, requires states to provide “reasonable accommodation” to ensure to persons with disabilities the enjoyment or exercise of their human rights on an equal basis with others. In this case, the state responded to a defendant’s conduct attributable to his serious mental disability by effectively punishing him for it.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases unconditionally.