Tennessee Governor Bill Lee on Thursday suspended the execution of Oscar Franklin Smith by lethal injection just one hour before the process was supposed to begin.
In a statement to that 5: 42 pm, the governor cited a lethal injection readiness review as reason for stopping the procedure.
The notice does not include more details about the nature of the problem.
With this interruption, the execution would not take place until June 1 or until the Supreme Court sets a new date.
Smith, an Episcopalian, was in the middle of the communication process with a spiritual adviser, when his lawyer Amy Harwell warned of the suspension.
As a result of the decision, Smith was removed from the execution surveillance area and returned to his cell.
“It was obvious, just a physical relief that washed over him,” Harwell told The Tennessea n about the feeling of her client. “He was thanking God that this stopped for now,” the spokeswoman added.
Kelley Henry, another attorney with the federal public defender’s office, called for an independent review of what happened.
“The governor did the right thing to stop what would surely be the torture of our client. A thorough investigation should be carried out immediately by an independent entity”, stated Henry.
The lawyer believes that the mishandling of the drugs used to prepare the lethal injection would have been the problem.
Shortage of the drugs that the state uses to executing those sentenced to death has been reported for years.
Tennessee used pentobarbital, a barbiturate, but manufacturers have stopped selling the drug for execution purposes.
In it 2018, the state changed to a new mixture that is made up of three drugs that make the convict fall asleep before his lungs and heart stop working.
Smith, of 42 years old, is part of a group of death row inmates who filed a lawsuit that same year on the grounds that the amounts of lethal injection he uses he is tado causes torture by creating feelings of suffocation and burning with life.
The plaintiffs alleged that the mixture of three drugs violates the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
Smith, the oldest inmate on death row in the state, was convicted of the murders at the 1989 from his estranged wife, Judith Robirds Smith, of 35; and the woman’s sons, Chad Burnett, of 16, and Jason Burnett, of 13.
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