On Thursday, Tennessee plans to carry out its first execution since 2019 by means of lethal injection. It’s the fourth scheduled execution date since 2020 for Oscar Smith, who was convicted of killing his estranged wife Judith Smith and her two sons Jason Burnett and Chad Burnett in 1989.
This execution marks the latest chapter in a back-and-forth that’s lasted 25 years between the Tennessee Department of Correction and lawyers, advocates, and governors who have questioned the constitutionality of the state’s execution protocols, even going so far as to call for moratoriums on executions altogether.
The state has waffled over usage of a single-drug and a three-drug protocol since 2000, and fears about pain and suffering associated with lethal injection grew so intense that people on death row said they’d prefer death by firing squad.
So how did Tennessee get here?
2000: Tennessee’s first lethal injection
- Lethal injection became the primary method of execution, but state law allowed people on death row who committed an offense prior to January 1999 to choose electrocution instead of lethal injection.
- Robert Glen Coe became the first person to be executed by lethal injection. His execution was the state’s first in nearly 40 years.
2004
- The Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the use of lethal injection as a permissible means of imposing a death sentence.
2005
- The Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the three-drug protocol.
2007: The first pause on injections
- Executions were put on pause for 90 days. Gov. Phil Bredesen issued an order to the Tennessee Department of Correction to review how executions take place. The department delivered revised protocol, and a few days later executions resumed.
- Daryl Keith Holton chose to be executed by electrocution instead of lethal injection. He was Tennessee’s fourth inmate to be executed since 2000, and the first to be electrocuted since 1960.
2010: Start of supply issues
- Gov. Bredesen commuted the sentence of Gaile Owens, one of only two women on death row in recent history according to the state.
- Hospira became the first pharmaceutical company to publicly oppose the use of its drugs in lethal injections. It ultimately stopped making one of the drugs, sodium thiopental. Several other companies made similar refusals. Buying commercial drugs became more and more difficult, kicking off the next 15 years of clandestine drug procurement.
2011
- The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency seized Tennessee’s lethal injection drug supply. It was one of several states suspected of buying drugs from overseas manufacturers. State officials denied the claim.
2013
- TDOC reviewed its lethal injection protocol, announcing the use of a single drug, pentobarbital, to replace the three-drug method, which included sodium thiopental.
2014: The path to ‘gray markets’
- Pfizer — one of the largest pharmaceutical manufacturers in the world — announced control mechanisms to keep its drugs out of execution chambers. It was the last FDA-approved company still selling products for use in lethal injections. That meant states could no longer legally purchase drugs made in a commercial lab. Now, they either buy commercial drugs through illegal means or have local labs formulate copies of the commercial drugs.
2017
- The Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the state’s single-drug lethal injection protocol.
2018: Executions resume
- TDOC reversed course, going back to the three-drug protocol. The Tennessee Supreme Court later upheld the protocol as constitutional.
- The state executed its first death row inmate in nine years. Lawyers for Billy Ray Irick argued that Tennessee’s three-drug protocol was not constitutional, but the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to intervene in the case. Justice Sonia Sotomayor disagreed with the decision, and in her dissent, she accused the Court of turning a “blind eye” to the likelihood that the state of Tennessee would inflict several minutes of torturous pain on Irick.
- Two others were also executed in 2018, but chose electrocution instead of lethal injection.
2019
- Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery stepped up efforts to execute death row inmates. Three people were executed that year — two by electrocution and one by lethal injection.
2020: COVID-19 pauses executions
- Nicholas Sutton was executed by electrocution in February, making him the state’s most recent execution to date.
- Oscar Smith was scheduled to be executed, but Gov. Bill Lee issued a reprieve from all executions because of the coronavirus pandemic.
- Pervis Payne was on death row at that time. He was granted a temporary execution reprieve, and a year later he was removed from death row after a Shelby County district attorney stated he could not be executed because of his intellectual disability.
- NPR published an investigation into lethal injection side effects. Autopsy reports revealed the injections damage the lungs in a way that creates a drowning sensation as inmates die. More than 80% of people executed by lethal injection showed signs of the damage.
2021: Smith’s execution delayed again
- Oscar Smith was once again scheduled to be executed, but the date was pushed.
- Gov. Lee directed TDOC to revise the lethal injection protocol.
- Defendants sentenced to death gained the right to petition the court for a determination on if they are intellectually disabled.
2022: Third-party review of protocol
- Gov. Lee halted the execution of Oscar Smith just an hour before it was scheduled to take place on April 21. The governor’s office said it was discovered the medication doses hadn’t gone through all the quality tests that are required. He called for an independent review of the process and for staffing changes at TDOC.
- Former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton was brought in to lead a third-party review of the state’s lethal injection protocol. He found that lethal injections in the last few years were not tested for endotoxins, and sometimes failed — or were not subjected to — potency tests.
2023
- Following the independent review, TDOC was again directed to revise the state’s lethal injection protocol. Executions remained on pause.
2024
- Tennessee announced executions would resume soon, and TDOC would return to the single-drug protocol without explaining why it was abandoning its three-drug protocol. Gov. Lee had advocated for the return of executions but said they need to be safe and regulated.
2025: Executions set to resume
- During the last week of the Biden Administration, the Department of Justice condemned the use of pentobarbital in executions. Attorney General Merrick Garland argued the process is cruel. The DOJ cited investigations that found the vast majority of lethal injections cause the sensation of drowning.
- Within 24 hours of taking office, President Donald Trump filed an executive order, announcing support for states carrying out capital punishment. The order pledged the federal government will help states secure lethal injection drugs.
- In March, TDOC set a new execution date of May 22 for Oscar Smith.
- Lawyers representing death row inmates filed a lawsuit in Davidson County Chancery Court, arguing the new lethal injection protocol is unconstitutional. Their challenge focused on how the protocol violates their clients’ rights in several ways. Since lawmakers don’t weigh in on these regulations, their only recourse is the court.
- The lawyers asked Gov. Lee for a reprieve until the case is decided. Justices said the proceedings would take until January 2026 at the earliest, and several executions are scheduled before then.
This story was produced by the Appalachia + Mid-South Newsroom, a collaboration between West Virginia Public Broadcasting, WPLN and WUOT in Tennessee, LPM, WEKU, WKMS and WKU in Kentucky and NPR.
