Tennessee Death Row Prisoner Seeks to Halt Upcoming Execution Citing New DNA Evidence from Murder Weapon

Citing new DNA findings from crime scene proof, attorneys for Tennessee
death-row prisoner Oscar Smith have requested a Nashville trial courtroom to halt his scheduled execution and reopen the case in opposition to him.

In a movement filed April 4, 2022 within the Davidson County Prison Court docket, Smith’s authorized workforce argued that proof from “contact DNA” — a brand new DNA testing expertise — “definitively excluded” Smith and steered that one other, unknown male was concerned within the murders for which their consumer was convicted.

Smith, who has persistently maintained his innocence, was sentenced to loss of life for killing his estranged spouse and her two sons in 1989. The three have been shot and stabbed with a knife and an axe, the one homicide weapon recovered from the crime scene. In January 2022, with the settlement of each prosecutors and the protection, the trial courtroom launched the axe for testing with the contact DNA expertise.

“The importance of this end result can’t be overstated,” Smith’s attorneys wrote within the movement. “Oscar Smith has, utilizing his new contact DNA expertise, demonstrated that he’s not the one that used the axe to kill his household.”

Smith is scheduled to be executed April 21, 2022.

“DNA proof exhibits that an unknown assailant — not Mr. Smith — used the bloody homicide weapon discovered on the crime scene to homicide Mr. Smith’s household,” Smith’s lawyer, Assistant Federal Defender Amy D. Harwell, stated. “New expertise makes it doable to determine the unknown individual’s DNA. Mr. Smith has steadfastly maintained his innocence since his arrest in 1989 — unable, till now, to scientifically show that he was not the killer.”

Smith, 71, is scheduled to be executed by deadly injection on April 21. His authorized workforce has beforehand appealed to reopen the case, citing errors made by the crime scene investigator who testified for the prosecution. The investigator testified {that a} bloody palm print discovered on the sheet subsequent to one of many victims was lacking two fingers and that there was “little doubt” the print belonged to Smith, who’s lacking two fingers on his left hand.

Protection attorneys have argued that the prosecution skilled made “egregious” errors, together with leaving his personal fingerprints on the axe, and that his “incompetence and lack of professionalism” makes the identification testimony suspect and unreliable. The movement stated that the contact DNA proof excluding Smith and implicating one other individual additional undermines the prosecution’s palm print testimony, which protection attorneys referred to as the state’s “most necessary piece of proof.”

The trial courtroom beforehand rejected that argument, and its ruling was affirmed in March 2022 by the Tennessee Court docket of Prison Appeals.

“Whereas procedural technicalities have up to now prevented the courts from reviewing new proof that exhibits the fingerprint examiner who recognized Mr. Smith overstated the case, an unknown individual’s DNA on the homicide weapon have to be absolutely thought of by the courts,” Harwell stated in an announcement.

Smith can also be a part of a federal lawsuit difficult the constitutionality of the state’s execution protocol. Tennessee makes use of a three-drug protocol of midazolam, a sedative; vecuronium bromide, a paralytic; and potassium chloride, which stops the prisoner’s coronary heart. The go well with units forth quite a lot of considerations concerning the protocol, together with that midazolam is unsuitable to be used in executions and that the state was conscious of issues with the preparation of its potassium chloride however didn’t disclose these issues to the prisoners and the courts.

The U.S. Supreme Court docket requires prisoners who problem the constitutionality of a state’s execution technique to suggest an alternate technique by which the state can take their life. Smith provided execution by firing squad as his various to deadly injection. If the execution goes ahead, it will be Tennessee’s first because the begin of the COVID-19 pandemic.