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tennessee officials announced on Friday a new method that could allow the state to resume executions after the last scheduled execution was abruptly stopped in spring 2022, although executions will not resume immediately.
This comes two and a half years after the state abruptly halted the execution of inmate Oscar Smith and admitted that prison officials were not following their own execution protocols, according to The Associated Press.
Smith, now 74, was scheduled to be executed for the 1989 murders of his ex-wife and teenage children before it was canceled.
The Tennessee Department of Corrections announced Friday that it had “completed its review of the lethal injection protocol, which will use the single drug pentobarbital.”
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The gurney in the execution chamber of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
Details about the new protocol were not made public.
Kelley Henry, head of the federal public defender’s habeas unit who represents many of the state’s death row inmates, said the announcement was “notable for its lack of detail.”
“The secrecy surrounding the execution protocol in Tennessee is what allowed TDOC to carry out executions in violation of its own protocol while misrepresenting its actions to the courts and the public,” Henry told The Associated Press.
The decision to grant Smith a last-minute stay of execution came after Henry requested the results of purity and potency tests required for the lethal injection drugs that were scheduled to execute him.
Later documents showed that at least two people knew that the lethal injection drugs the state intended to use had not gone through some of the required testing. An independent review then revealed that the state had not complied with its own lethal injection process since it was reviewed in 2018.
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Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry speaks during a news conference regarding Tennessee death row inmate Oscar Franklin Smith during a news conference in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, Thursday, April 28, 2022. (AP)
Department of Corrections Commissioner Frank Strada took office in January 2023, the same month his top prosecutor and inspector general was fired.
“I am confident that the lethal injection process can proceed in accordance with department policy and state law,” Strada said Friday.
Henry said that death row inmates have a ongoing federal lawsuit challenging Tennessee’s previous lethal injection protocol, which used three different drugs in series.
The plaintiffs stayed the case pending the state’s review of the procedure. The inmates’ agreement with the State gives them 90 days to review the new protocol and determine whether to modify their complaint.
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The Alabama lethal injection chamber is shown on October 7, 2002 at the Holman Correctional Center in Atmore, Alabama. (AP)
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Henry requested that no new execution dates be set while the court case continues.
He also highlighted that the US Department of Justice He is currently reviewing the use of pentobarbital in his executions.
“We know from the scientific data that pentobarbital as a single drug produces pulmonary edema that has been compared to waterboarding,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
