Tennessee is pausing executions until the end of the year to allow an independent review of its lethal injection procedures, after a last-minute reprieve was granted to death row inmate Oscar Smith. Republican Governor Bill Lee said on Monday that former US attorney Ed Standon would examine the testing of lethal injection chemicals, the clarity of the execution protocol manual and staffing considerations at the Tennessee department of correction.
'I review each death penalty case and believe it is an appropriate punishment for heinous crimes,' Lee said. 'However, the death penalty is an extremely serious matter, and I expect the Tennessee department of correction to leave no question that procedures are correctly followed.' The pause will remain in effect through the end of the year to allow time for the review and corrective action.
Smith, 72, Tennessee's oldest death row inmate, was granted a temporary reprieve on 21 April about an hour before he was due to be executed. Lee cited 'an oversight in preparation for lethal injection' but gave no further details at the time. Smith's lawyers had asked for a moratorium on executions and a review of state protocols. Federal public defender Kelley Henry said the failure to test for endotoxins was 'a violation of the protocol' and that the use of compounded drugs in lethal injection was 'fraught with risk'.
Tennessee uses a three-drug series: midazolam to render the inmate unconscious, vecuronium bromide to paralyse, and potassium chloride to stop the heart. Officials have maintained that inmates are unconscious and feel no pain, while expert witnesses for inmates have said the procedure could cause feelings of drowning, suffocation and burning while the inmate is unable to move or call out. Since Tennessee resumed executions in 2018, five of the seven inmates put to death have chosen the electric chair. Smith, convicted of murdering his estranged wife and her two teenage sons in 1989, declined to choose and was therefore scheduled for lethal injection. His reprieve expires on 1 June, after which the state supreme court will set a new execution date.
In a separate case on Monday, the US Supreme Court declined to halt the execution of Missouri inmate Carman Deck, and Missouri's Republican Governor Mike Parson said he would not grant clemency. Deck, 56, is scheduled to die by injection on Tuesday for killing a couple during a robbery in 1996. Four people have been executed in the United States so far in 2022. The 11 executions carried out in 2021 were the fewest since 1988, compared with a peak of 98 in 1998.
