TONY VON CARRUTHERS v. STATE OF TENNESSEE - Articles

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TONY VON CARRUTHERS v. STATE OF TENNESSEE

Posted by: Julia Wilburn on Apr 16, 2026

Court: TN Court of Criminal Appeals

Attorneys 1: Amy D. Harwell, First Assistant Federal Public Defender and Marshall Jensen, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Tony Von Carruthers.

Attorneys 2: Jonathan Skrmetti, Attorney General and Reporter; Benjamin L. Barker, (on appeal) Assistant Attorney General; Courtney Orr, and Kirby May (at hearing), Assistant Attorneys General; Stephen J. Mulroy, District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

Judge(s): WEDEMEYER

For events in 1994, a Shelby County jury convicted the Petitioner, Tony Von Carruthers, of three counts of first degree murder, three counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, and one count of especially aggravated robbery. The Petitioner unsuccessfully appealed his convictions, as well as filed for post-conviction relief, Federal habeas corpus relief, and motions to reopen. As relevant here, in 2021, the Petitioner filed a petition pursuant to the Post-Conviction Fingerprint Analysis Act of 2021. He sought fingerprint analysis comparison of prints taken from the home of two of the murder victims and known latent prints of Ronnie Irving, a man implicated in these murders by co-defendant James Montgomery in 2010. The post-conviction court summarily dismissed the petition after concluding that the Petitioner was not entitled to mandatory or discretionary testing. On appeal, the Petitioner contends that the post-conviction court erred when it denied his petition. After review, we affirm the post-conviction court’s judgment.

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