Tennessee plans 1st COVID-19-era execution, more scheduled

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee is set to execute its first inmate Thursday (April 21, 2022) since the start of the pandemic. The state planning to administer a lethal injection to 72-year-old Oscar Smith that has become less common in the state than the electric chair in recent years. Smith is scheduled to die for the 1989 killings of his estranged wife and her teenage sons. Smith has maintained he is innocent. His execution would be the first of five planned by Tennessee for 2022 and would resuming the state’s quick pace of putting inmates to death from before the pandemic. The state has not conducted any executions since February 2020.