May 23 (UPI) -- Tennessee has carried out the United States' 19th execution of the year, killing 75-year-old death row inmate Oscar Smith for the murder of his estranged wife and her two teenage sons in 1989.
Smith, wearing a yellow prison uniform and strapped to a gurney, was executed by lethal injection at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, and was pronounced dead at 10:47 a.m. CST Thursday, the Tennessee Department of Correction said in a statement.
Smith maintained that he did not kill Judith Lynn Smith, 35, and her sons from a previous marriage, Chad Burnett, 16, and Jason Burnett, 13, on the night of Oct. 1, 1989.
In his final statement he criticized the justice system, saying "it doesn't work," according to media witnesses, who spoke during a press conference following the execution.
He said too many innocent people, like him, are killed and that more men are waiting to die.
"I'm not the first, and I won't be the last," he said, according to the witnesses.
Then, as he spoke with his spiritual adviser, the witnesses heard him say, faintly, "I didn't kill her."
Smith was convicted of the triple murder and sentenced to death for fatally shooting and stabbing Judy and Chad, and stabbing Jason to death on that October night.
According to court documents, Smith and Judy were married on Aug. 8, 1985, and she gave birth to their twin boys in December of the next year. They separated in June of 1989 and a divorce action was pending at the time of the murders, as was two aggravated assault warrants for abusing Jason and Judy.
The documents state that during the trial, testimony revealed that Smith was abusive. The same month they separated, Smith had fought with Jason, bitting the teenager on the back and putting a gun to his head. In August of that year, just two months before the murders, the court heard Smith had tied Judy up, raped her and ran a knife across her throat while threatening to kill her.
During the trial, a co-worker of Smith testified that in the summer of 1988, Smith offered to kill his wife in exchange for killing Judy. A second co-worker testified that Smith had said he would offer $20,000 to have Judy and her two sons killed.
It was also learned that Smith had taken out a life insurance policy for Judy and the two teenagers, which would have made him the beneficiary of $88,000, the court documents state.
Smith was originally schedule to be killed in April of 2022, but his execution was put on hold due to an issue with the preparation for lethal injection. That month, his attorneys asked the court to reopen his case claiming new DNA evidence discovered on the murder weapon warranted a reconsideration of his conviction.
His request was denied. The Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee ruled that the new evidence does not establish his innocence.
"The pain of losing Judy, Chad and Jason is something that we will continue to carry. Not a moment goes by that we don't miss them," Judy's sister, Terri Osborne, said in a statement.
"Through our heartbreak, we are reminded of the devastating consequences of domestic violence. This tragedy is not only a personal loss -- it is part of a much larger issue that affects countless families across our society. Domestic violence destroys lives."
Smith is the first person to be executed in the state of Tennessee since February 2020.
Amnesty International criticized Tennessee for restarting "the machinery of death" instead of seeking to abolish the death penalty.
"Oscar Smith's case, like so many others on death row, raises serious and unresolved concerns: inconclusive forensic evidence, juror bias and misconduct, and questions about whether he received a fair trial," Justin Mazzola, deputy director of research for Amnesty International USA said in a statement.
"Today's execution was not justice. The death penalty is never justice."
Smith's death -- the 19th in the United States this year -- comes two days after Matthew Johnson, 49, was executed in Texas for the brutal 2012 murder of a grandmother during a convenience store robbery.
There are nine additional executions so far scheduled for the remainder of the year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The next executions are scheduled for June 10, when Anthony Floyd Wainwright is set to die in Florida, and Gregory Hunt in Alabama.
