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, would come as some other states struggle to secure lethal injection drugs because pharmacies and manufacturers have refused to supply their medications for executions.
