Tennessee governor calls off Oscar Smith execution, citing ‘oversight in preparation for lethal injection’

The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday

Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

The state of Tennessee has temporarily called of the impending execution of a death row inmate named Oscar Smith, the governor has announced..

“Due to an oversight in preparation for lethal injection, the scheduled execution of Oscar Smith will not move forward tonight,” Governor Bill Lee Lee said in a statement on Thursday. “I am granting a temporary reprieve while we address Tennessee Department of Correction protocol. Further details will be released when they are available.”

Prior to the announcement, Smith, was set to be executed on the night of 21 April. He would’ve been the first person the state executed during the Covid pandemic.

The Independent has reached out to the governor’s office for comment.

The 72-year-old has been on death row for 32 years, after being convicted of the 1989 killings of his estranged wife, Judith Robirds Smith, and her two teenaged children.

Earlier this week, the governor rejected a clemency request from Smith, who argues there is DNA evidence in his case that has not been properly considered by the court system.

“It is unthinkable that, as DNA analysis continues to overturn hundreds of convictions, the Constitution would permit the state-sanctioned killing of those who can demonstrate their innocence,” a last-minute filing with the Tennessee Supreme Court to stay the execution argued.

State and appellate courts have rejected his previous appeals.

A federal court also rejected a filing earlier this week, which argued state courts had improperly handled Smith’s appeals.

“He had his day in court,” US District Judge Aleta A Trauger wrote on Wednesday, denying a request to temporarily pause the execution. “These facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, are simply not sufficient to establish a violation of his rights to due process, to a judicial remedy, or to access the courts.”

The use of lethal injection in Tennessee and beyond remains highly controversial, with justice advocates pointing to states like Oklahoma, where a series of botched executions led to a six-year moratorium, only for authorities to accidentally “torture” John Grant, the first inmate executed under a strengthened safety protocol in 2021.

“Less than a week after the state of Oklahoma experienced the botched execution of John Grant, Tennessee has rushed to set an execution date,” Amy Harwell, Smith’s public defender, told the Nashville Scene when his execution date was set last year. “Tennessee proposes to kill Mr Smith using the same three-drug protocol that caused Mr Grant to seize, convulse and vomit before becoming unconscious. Federal litigation remains pending in the Tennessee Department of Corrections’ use of this controversial execution protocol.”

Most mainstream pharmaceutical companies have stopped selling drugs to state execution chambers, leading places like South Carolina to resort to older, and just as controversial, execution methods like the electric chair and the firing squad.

The sudden postponement comes just a day after another last-minute delay in the death chamber in South Carolina, where the state’s supreme court on Wednesday paused an upcoming execution that would’ve used a firing squad, a practice that’s being challenged in litigation at multiple levels.

The Independent and the nonprofit Responsible Business Initiative for Justice (RBIJ) have launched a joint campaign calling for an end to the death penalty in the US. The RBIJ has attracted more than 150 well-known signatories to their Business Leaders Declaration Against the Death Penalty - with The Independent as the latest on the list. We join high-profile executives like Ariana Huffington, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson as part of this initiative and are making a pledge to highlight the injustices of the death penalty in our coverage.