Commentary: The End of the Death Penalty in Tennessee

On February 20, 2020, Nicholas Todd Sutton was executed by the State of Tennessee.

He will be the last person Tennessee executes for a very long time.

On April 22, 2022, Oscar Franklin Smith was supposed to be executed by lethal injection but was granted a temporary reprieve by Governor Bill Lee because of a “technical oversight” in the lethal injection process.

Disturbingly, the Governor’s office and the Tennessee Department of Corrections have refused to disclose what this “oversight” was.

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