Tennessee’s governor stated Tuesday that he won’t intervene within the scheduled execution later this week of an inmate convicted of fatally stabbing and capturing his estranged spouse and her sons many years in the past.
Attorneys for 72-year-old Oscar Smith had requested Republican Gov. Invoice Lee for clemency, citing issues with the jury in his 1990 trial. Smith is ready to obtain a deadly injection on Thursday.
Lee issued a one-sentence assertion declining to step in.
“After thorough consideration of Oscar Smith’s request for clemency and an in depth assessment of the case, the State of Tennessee’s sentence will stand, and I can’t be intervening,” Lee wrote.
Smith was convicted of fatally stabbing and capturing Judith Smith and her sons, Jason and Chad, 13 and 16, at their Nashville dwelling on Oct. 1, 1989. A Davidson County jury sentenced him to loss of life the next 12 months.
Smith has maintained that he’s harmless. His attorneys had been denied requests to reopen his case after a brand new sort of DNA evaluation discovered the DNA of an unknown individual on one of many homicide weapons.
The state has not put any inmates to loss of life since February 2020, when Nicholas Sutton died within the electrical chair. Executions had been placed on maintain due to the COVID-19 pandemic.