
Public defenders call for moratorium on executions in Tennessee after 'temporary reprieve' for death row inmate
CNN
Federal public defenders in Tennessee are calling for a statewide moratorium on executions and an independent commission to study the state's executions after a death row inmate was granted a temporary reprieve minutes before his execution last week, according to a letter addressed to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.
Oscar Smith was scheduled to be executed last week for the 1989 murders of his wife, Judith Smith, and her two minor children, Chad and Jason Burnett, in Nashville.
Lee declined to intervene in Smith's case earlier, setting the 72-year-old inmate up to be the first person executed in the state since the Covid-19 pandemic began.
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