Philip Ray Workman
Philip Workman was a Seventh-day Adventist who became a member while in prison and, for religious reasons, did not want an autopsy. His brother Terry and spiritual adviser Joe Ingle were with him the night before he died. Tennessee executed him by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville early on May 9, 2007, after state and federal courts rejected his attorneys' last-minute appeals over newly revised execution protocols, and he was pronounced dead at 1:38 a.m. Central time. His attorneys argued that the revised protocols violated the ban on cruel and unusual punishment and that he had too little time to challenge them, critics said the procedures were flawed, and his lawyers had argued for years that the evidence in his case was unreliable. He asked that his last meal, a vegetarian pizza, be given to a homeless person; one account says prison officials refused, and after news of the request, Nashville's Union Rescue Mission received 170 pizzas.
Cause of death, as reported: Executed by the state. His lawyers argued that the revised lethal injection protocols violated the ban on cruel and unusual punishment and that he lacked time to challenge them.
Reported by: Tennessee Department of Correction (the agency that held him); Associated Press (reporters).
Sources (8)
- Tennessee Department of Correction, Executions
- Tennessee executes Philip Workman by lethal injection
- Final meals for the last 10 people executed in Tennessee
- Philip Ray Workman’s last request
- Final meals for the last 12 people executed in Tennessee
- From Pig Tails to Cheesecake: A Look at TN Death Row Inmates’ Last Meals
- All Tennessee executions since 2000
- In Tennessee, people facing execution are neither seen nor heard