TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Kate Prince on Jun 13, 2022

Tennessee’s pause on executions through 2022 could potentially be a yearslong hiatus, the Associated Press reports. Gov. Bill Lee stopped the execution of Oscar Smith in April, an hour before Smith was set to die by lethal injection, after learning the drugs hadn’t been tested as required. Lee then paused all executions and appointed Butler Snow attorney Edward Stanton to lead an investigation into state protocols. Two men on death row have filed challenges to the state’s execution process, which have revealed that the state has struggled to follow its own lethal injection rules at nearly every step. The attorney general’s office in a May 6 court filing said there may be “factual inaccuracies or misstatements” in its previous filings and that corrections will be made “once the truth has been ascertained.” Lee and the AG’s office haven’t predicted when executions could restart, but Robert Durham, executive director of the Washington-based nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, says the “large number of problems” with the system could mean a yearslong pause.