Amherst College

Attorneys for Darrell Hines, scheduled for execution on Aug. 13 for a 1985 murder, are seeking clarity on whether Mark Walton Fowler, a family medicine doctor with prior execution involvement, will participate. Fowler faced scrutiny after failing to insert an IV during an aborted execution in May and admitted in a deposition that his last central IV line placement was around 2013, with no hospital privileges. Tennessee's secrecy laws protect the identities of execution participants, but opponents argue they obscure accountability.

The article discusses the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's 1976 decisions that reinstated the death penalty, arguing that the constitutional framework established then was based on an unrealistic 'fantasy of fairness.' Author Austin Sarat criticizes the legitimacy of capital punishment and advocates for its abolition.

Tennessee's attempt to execute Tony Carruthers on May 21 failed, leaving him alive as the ninth person to survive a botched execution in 80 years. The article argues that a second attempt would be inhumane and criticizes the state's use of the death penalty.