Oscar Smith: Sentenced to death by Tennessee to be executed after his governor refuses pardon

The governor refused to intervene in the case of Oscar Smith on Tuesday, placing the 72-year-old prisoner as the first person executed in the state since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“After a thorough examination of Oscar Smith’s request for clemency and a thorough examination of the case, the Tennessee verdict will remain in force and I will not interfere,” Lee said in a statement announcing his decision.

Last week, the U.S. Criminal Court of Appeals rejected Smith’s request to reopen his case and his request for a DNA review of the case. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed his appeal.

“Mr Smith has maintained his innocence for more than thirty years. “New cutting-edge DNA evidence excluding Mr Smith as a DNA collaborator on the murder weapon in this case proves his claim,” Smith’s lawyer Amy Harwell told CNN on Tuesday night. “The state has erected an insurmountable barrier to Mr Smith’s allegations of innocence. The governor’s refusal to pardon in these circumstances is extremely disappointing. “

Smith, Tennessee’s oldest man, was convicted in 1990 of the murders of his estranged wife, Judith Smith, and her two sons, Chad and Jason Burnett, in Nashville. On Monday night, Smith was transferred to the death watch, a three-day period in which the executed person was moved to a cell near the death chamber and placed under 24-hour surveillance, according to the Tennessee Department of Corrections. The state has not carried out an execution since February 2020, when Nicholas Sutton was killed by an electric chair. The pandemic has delayed executions in many states, including Tennessee, although the annual number of executions has generally declined since the early 2000s, according to an analysis by the Death Penalty Information Center. In recent years, some states have struggled to obtain the drugs needed to carry out executions by lethal injection, the widely preferred method in the United States, which essentially delays such executions. In some cases, states will also kill people by electric shock, although few states, such as South Carolina, are turning to an alternative method – death by shooting.