Tennessee is set to execute its first inmate Thursday since the start of the pandemic, planning a lethal injection procedure that has become less common in the state than the electric chair in recent years.
Oscar Smith, 72, is scheduled to die for the 1989 killings of his estranged wife and her teenage sons. The execution using the state's preferred method puts Tennessee on a divergent path from South Carolina, which has been preparing for a rare U.S. firing squad execution. However, South Carolina's Supreme Court put the planned April 29 execution on hold Wednesday, at least temporarily, saying a more detailed order would follow.
