23 May 2025 :
May 22, 2025 - Tennessee. Oscar Smith, 75, White, was executed on May 22, 2025
At the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, Nashville, via lethal injection.
Smith, now 75, was convicted of fatally stabbing and shooting his estranged wife, Judith Smith, and her sons, Jason and Chad, 13 and 16, at their home on October 1, 1989. A Davidson County jury sentenced him to death in July 1990.
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.
Smith was pronounced dead at 10:47 a.m. after a lethal injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital. The 75-year-old had maintained his innocence. In a lengthy final statement, he railed against the justice system, saying it “doesn’t work”.
Thursday marked the first time Tennessee officials allowed a spiritual adviser into the execution chamber with the inmate. She prayed over Smith and comforted him, at one point singing, “I’ll Fly Away.”
Tennessee executions have been on hold for five years, first because of COVID-19 and then because of missteps by the Tennessee Department of Correction.
Smith came within minutes of execution in 2022 before a surprise reprieve from Republican Gov. Bill Lee. It later turned out the lethal drugs for that planned execution had not been properly tested. A yearlong investigation revealed numerous other problems with Tennessee executions.
Smith becomes the 1st person executed in Tennessee this year, the 14th in the state since it resumed executions in 2000, the 19 person executed this year in the US and the n° 1626 overall since the nation resumed executions in 1977.
