After an undisclosed “oversight” forced Tennessee to call off the execution of Oscar Smith an hour before he was to die last week, Smith's attorneys on Thursday asked for a moratorium on executions and a review of the state's execution protocols.
Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry, speaking at a Thursday news conference, said there needs to be an independent investigation of what went wrong. The state's reluctance to promptly disclose what happened undermines public confidence in their ability to carry out an impartial investigation, she said.
