TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Azya Thornton on May 21, 2025

Tennessee is scheduled to execute Oscar Franklin Smith tomorrow morning as a lawsuit challenging the state’s new lethal injection protocol moves through the court system. According to WPLN, anti-death penalty advocates and Smith’s attorneys spent weeks asking Gov. Bill Lee to halt executions until the court rules on whether the protocol is constitutional. A decision on that could take until at least 2026 the news outlet reports. Smith’s attorneys announced Tuesday that Lee had denied a request for a reprieve. Smith, who was convicted of murdering his wife Judith Smith and her two sons in 1989, will be the first person in Tennessee to be executed using a single lethal dose of pentobarbital. Attorneys for nine death row inmates are challenging that method in Davidson County Chancery Court.