The Tennessee Supreme Court postponed execution dates for four inmates , effectively halting all executions while the courts decide whether current protocols for putting people to death are constitutional . Tennessee last executed a prisoner in 2009 . Since then , legal challenges and problems obtaining lethal injection drugs have stalled new executions . In 2013 and 2014 , the state tried to jump-start the process with a new one-drug lethal injection method and the reinstatement of the electric chair as a backup . The Tennessee Supreme Court has vacated the execution dates of the last four men on the state 's death row as new lethal injection methods are challenged . Above , electrocution has been designated as a backup method . Beginning in December 2013 , the court set new execution dates for 11 inmates . One inmate died in prison , and the execution dates for the others have been postponed as they approach because of legal challenges to the new methods . On Friday , the court postponed the last of the scheduled execution dates . It will set new dates after the legal questions are settled . States across the country have been struggling to find a method of execution that will stand up to legal challenges . And obtaining lethal injection drugs has been getting harder . As manufacturers have refused to sell drugs to prisons for executions , prison officials across the US have turned to compounding pharmacies , which make drugs specifically for individual clients . But those versions have also become difficult to come by because pharmacists are reluctant to expose themselves to possible harassment . Last month , the American Pharmacists Association adopted a policy discouraging its members from providing drugs for lethal injections , saying that runs contrary to the role of pharmacists as health care providers . Death row inmates challenging Tennessee 's lethal injection method recently submitted an affidavit from University of Utah College of Pharmacy professor James H. Ruble that questions whether even a willing compounding pharmacist could provide the pentobarbital that Tennessee and several other states need for executions . Leroy Hall Jr , 48 ( left ) and Nicholas Todd Sutton , 53 ( right ) were both convicted of murder in 1991 and 1985 , respectively . They no longer have dates for execution in Tennessee . Donald Strouth , 56 ( left ) and Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman , 64 ( right ) were also both convicted of murder , though the European Union has called for Abdur'Rahman , who is believed to be mentally ill , to be allowed to live . Ruble says in the affidavit that the main ingredient for pentobarbital is unavailable from the six primary commercial sources that compounding pharmacists buy their ingredients from . The Tennessee Supreme Court 's recent ruling will vacate the execution dates for Leroy Hall Jr , 48 , Donald Wayne Strouth , 56 , Nicholas Todd Sutton , 53 , and Abu-Ali Abdur ’ Rahman , 64 . Hall was convicted of premeditated murder and aggravated arson after burning his ex-girlfriend to death in 1991 . Strouth was convicted of murdering a clothing store owner in 1978 by slitting his throat after he was knocked unconscious with a rock . Sutton was sentenced to death for stabbing a fellow inmate to death in 1985 after originally being sent to prison for child molestation . Abdur'Rahman , formerly James Lee Jones , received his death penalty sentence for the murder of a Nashville cocaine dealer in 1986 while he was a remember of a militant Christian group looking to eliminate drugs from its neighborhood . The case of Abdur'Rahman , who was reportedly seriously abused by his parents as a child , has drawn international attention and the European Union called for a stay . He is believed to be mentally ill and had ineffective counsel during his trial , according to his website . There are 69 people on Tennessee 's death row . The Tennessee Supreme Court ( pictured ) is waiting for verdicts about the constitutionality of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital . Tennessee last year reinstated electrocution as an alternative if lethal injection drugs are unavailable or a court rules the procedure unconstitutional . But that change has brought yet another legal challenge . Other states of the 31 with the death penalty are considering their own alternatives . Utah last month reinstated the firing squad as a backup method if it ca n't obtain lethal injection drugs . In Oklahoma , lawmakers approved nitrogen gas as a backup execution method . The state 's Republican Governor Mary Fallin supports the death penalty but has not said whether she will sign the bill . Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf suspended his state 's death penalty in February , citing the inefficiency of long court proceedings and expense . Ohio and Georgia are delaying all of their executions while investigation their lethal injection drug protocols . The US Supreme Court will hear a case later this month about the first substance in a so-called 'three drug cocktail ' , which is supposed to render the person being executed unconscious so they will not feel pain for the second two drugs . Scrutiny on the death penalty has increased since an execution using the drug , midazolam , resulted in an Oklahoma inmate writhing in presumed pain before dying 43 minutes after the procedure began . Tennessee uses only one drug in its protocol , the sedative pentobarbital . There are 69 people in death row in the state , according to the Department of Corrections . The Tennessee Supreme Court order said that their execution dates have previously been vacated for legal challenges .
the European Union vacates execution dates for four men . Leroy Hall Jr , 48 , Donald Wayne Strouth , 56 , Nicholas Todd Sutton , 53 , and Abu-Ali Abdur ’ Rahman , 64 , all faced upcoming death . New executions stalled as states ' new lethal injection methods scrutinized .