NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Over three years past, Oscar Smith was minutes away from execution when Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee unexpectedly delayed the process due to issues with the lethal injection drugs. On Thursday, Tennessee is set to attempt his execution once more.
In a recent phone call, Smith hesitated to dwell on his near-death experience in 2022. Instead, he expressed regret over Lee’s intervention, stating that the additional three years spent on death row have been “more than hell.” He mentioned a decline in conditions at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee, although he didn’t provide specific details, accusing the prison officials of not adhering to their policies.
Smith, 75, said he asked his family to stay away on Thursday and not witness his execution because “they don’t need to see anything like that.”
Smith received a conviction for the murder of his estranged wife, Judith Smith, and her sons, 13-year-old Jason and 16-year-old Chad, at their home in Nashville on October 1, 1989. The following year, a jury in Davidson County sentenced him to death.
Some relatives of Smith’s victims do plan to attend the execution, Tennessee Department of Correction spokesperson Dorinda Carter said in an email. The Associated Press requested to interview relatives through the Tennessee Attorney General’s victim services office, but no one agreed to be interviewed.
“My own personal minister will be with me in the execution chamber with her hand on my shoulder praying,” Smith said. He is grateful for that, but also worried about her.
“I’m having a real hard time adjusting to the idea of having a young lady in the execution chamber,” he said. “She doesn’t need any bad experiences.”
Smith will be the first Tennessee inmate to be executed under a new lethal injection process released in late December that uses a single dose of the barbiturate pentobarbital. While the method is new to Tennessee, it has been used by other states and the federal government.
A review of the drug under President Joe Biden’s administration led then-Attorney General Merrick Garland to halt its use in federal executions, finding it had the potential to cause “ unnecessary pain and suffering.” New Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered the Justice Department to reconsider that decision.
Smith is suing Tennessee over the update to the execution protocols, arguing TDOC failed to follow the recommendations of a yearlong independent investigation called for by Lee in 2022. However, that trial is not until next January — too late to change anything for Smith. Only Lee has the power to stop the execution. He said on Tuesday that he plans to let it go forward.
While lethal injection is the state’s preferred method of execution, some Tennessee inmates in recent years have exercised the option of death in the electric chair, expressing the opinion that it would be quicker and less painful. Smith, too, had the option to choose the electric chair, but declined to make a choice.
“Because of my religious beliefs, I wouldn’t participate or sign anything,” he said. “I was taught that taking your own life, or having anything to do with it, is a sin.”
Smith has continued to claim that he is innocent. In a phone interview on May 7 — shortly before he was to begin a 14-day period of relative isolation that is part of the new Tennessee execution protocol — Smith mostly wanted to discuss his case and the various ways he feels his trial was unfair.
In 2022, a Davidson County Criminal Court judge denied requests to reopen his case after a new type of DNA analysis found the DNA of an unknown person on one of the murder weapons.
“Now that I could rebut everything they used against me, the courts don’t want to hear it,” is the way Smith sees it. He says he wants a new trial and “to be found truly innocent by a jury of my peers.”
However, the judge who declined to reopen his case found the evidence of Smith’s guilt extensive, citing prior threats and a life insurance policy taken out by Smith for the three victims.
Speaking about the execution, Smith said, “It sounds like we’re going back to medieval times, to the gladiators. People want to see blood sports.
“Why anyone wants to see anyone being killed, I don’t understand it. We’re supposed to be a civilized country.”
