Suddenly after more than 2 years of Tennessee Prisoner Oscar Smith's execution stopped — Acknowledging that corrections officials were not following their own execution protocols — the state has announced a new method that could allow halted executions to resume through May 2022. But this will not happen immediately.
Tennessee Department of Corrections announced in a brief statement On Friday it “completed a revision of the lethal injection protocol, which will use the single drug pentobarbital.” The department did not immediately release the new protocol to the public or provide any further details.
Kelly Henry, head of the federal public defender's captive unit, which represents many of Tennessee's death row inmates, said the announcement was “remarkable for its lack of detail.”
“The secrecy that shrouds execution protocols in Tennessee has allowed TDOC to conduct executions in violation of its own protocols, as well as to expose its actions to the courts and the public,” Henry said in a text message to The Associated Press. has been misrepresented.”
Smith was Convicted of fatal stabbing His wife and his son, separated from him decades ago. He was initially scheduled to be hanged in June 2020, but it was delayed due to the pandemic. Shortly before the 2022 date, his lawyers asked Governor Bill Lee for clemency, citing jury problems in the 1990 trial, but Lee declined to intervene. The US Supreme Court also refused to take up the case.
Smith received an 11th-hour reprieve from execution when Henry requested the results of the purity and potency tests required for the lethal injection drugs to be used on him. Documents later obtained through a public records request revealed that at least two people knew that some of the lethal injection drugs the state planned to use had not undergone required testing. A subsequent independent review found that the state had not complied with its lethal injection procedure since it was revised in 2018.
Commissioner Frank Strada took charge of the Corrections Department in January 2023, the same month its top lawyer and inspector general were fired. Strada said in a Friday statement that he was “confident that the lethal injection procedure can proceed in compliance with department policy and state laws.”
Henry said a lawsuit is pending in federal court against death row inmates challenging Tennessee's previous lethal injection protocol, in which three different drugs were used in the series. He put the case on hold pending a state review and revision of the process. Their agreement with the state gives them 90 days to look at the new protocol and decide whether to amend their complaint to challenge it.
Henry said no new execution date should be set while his court case is ongoing. He also said that the US Justice Department is currently reviewing the use of pentobarbital in his execution.