Tennessee Governor Temporarily Delays Execution of Convicted Killer Due to ‘Oversight’

Tennessee death-row inmate Oscar Franklin Smith pictured in an undated photo. (Tennessee Department of Correction/AP)

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Thursday issued a temporary reprieve to the execution of convicted killer Oscar Franklin Smith due to an “oversight in preparation for lethal injection.”

The state’s governor called off the execution just an hour before it was scheduled to go ahead at 7 p.m.

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

Lee, a Republican, did not provide further details regarding the “oversight” which led to the execution of the 72-year-old inmate being delayed. It is the first time Lee has intervened in a capital case, The Tennessean reported.

Earlier the Tennessee Department of Correction issued a statement that Smith received his final meal at 4:12 p.m. “He selected a double bacon cheeseburger, deep-dish apple pie, and vanilla bean ice cream for his last meal,” the statement said.

Smith, the oldest inmate on death row, had been scheduled to be killed by lethal injection on Thursday evening at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, having initially been scheduled to be executed in June 2020 which was delayed due to the pandemic.

He was convicted of fatally stabbing and shooting his estranged wife Judith Smith and her sons Jason and Chad Burnett, 13 and 16, at their Nashville home on Oct. 1, 1989. A Davidson County jury sentenced him to death the following year.

Smith—who would have been the first inmate to be executed in the state since the COVID-19 pandemic began—has maintained he is innocent.

Prior to the governor’s announcement on Thursday, Tennessee’s Court of Criminal Appeals last week denied a motion bought by Smith’s lawyers to reopen his case and motion to have a DNA analysis review of the case after a new type of DNA analysis discovered the DNA of an unknown person on one of the murder weapons.

The Tennessee Supreme Court also denied hearing his appeal on Monday.

Smith has argued he should be executed by firing squad, reasoning that it is less painful than Tennessee’s two options: the electric chair or lethal injection, which utilizes a three-drug series to put inmates to death. His lawsuit was denied.

His execution would have marked the first of five planned by Tennessee this year as the state looks to resume its pre-pandemic pace of putting inmates to death.

Tennessee’s five death warrants mean it’s at a tie with Texas for the most nationally this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

However, his execution also comes at a time when some states are struggling to secure lethal injection drugs because drug companies are refusing to supply their medications for executions until the law is changed to protect their identities from anti-death-penalty activists.

Kelley Henry, an attorney with the federal public defender’s office, which represents Smith, told WTVF-TV that there needs to be an immediate independent review into what happened on Thursday.

“The governor did the right thing by stopping what was sure to be the torture of our client,” Henry said. “A thorough investigation should immediately take place by an independent entity.”

The decision to halt Smith’s death in Tennessee came just a day after the South Carolina Supreme Court issued a temporary stay preventing the state from carrying out what would have been its first-ever execution by firing squad.

Richard Bernard Moore, 57, was scheduled to be executed on April 29 but lawyers for the convicted killer have argued that he is being forced to choose between “cruel and unusual punishment” after prison officials failed to obtain lethal injection drugs.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.