DNA Test Could Stop Tennessee Execution

A man in Tennessee is about to be put to death for a triple murder that happened over twenty years ago. He says new DNA work might prove he didn’t do it. The crime happened in 1994 when a kidnapper took three people from a home and buried them under a casket in a Memphis graveyard. The bodies were found with a blood‑stained blanket and fingerprints left at the scene. Police traced the crime to three suspects: a man named Tony Carruthers and his brothers, Jonathan and James Montgomery. At trial the state said they kidnapped the victims to steal from them. Carruthers and James were found guilty of three first‑degree murders in 1996 and got death sentences. Jonathan was already dead before the trial. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion in April to re‑test DNA from the crime scene. The ACLU says no physical evidence links Carruthers to the case; it was built mainly on jailhouse informants, who are known for wrong convictions. Fingerprints at the scene did not match Carruthers or James, but left six unknown prints. A jury never heard this because Carruthers had to represent himself after a history of violence toward lawyers. He was described as mentally ill and incompetent.Later, James Montgomery’s conviction was overturned because he didn’t get a fair trial due to Carruthers’ self‑representation. During his retrial, Montgomery asked for DNA testing but nothing matched him or Carruthers. One strong male DNA profile was found on the blanket, but it has not been matched to anyone. Montgomery later gave a statement saying Carruthers was innocent and named another suspect, Ronnie “Eyeball” Irving. However, Irving was killed in 2002 and his DNA is still in the medical examiner’s files. The ACLU wants that DNA compared to the unknown profile. Carruthers hopes that if DNA proves his innocence, he can stop the execution scheduled for May 21. A court recently denied a request to test fingerprints, saying there is no chance the new results would change the outcome. The case shows how old evidence can still be important and how errors in trials can happen.