Texas And Tennessee Set To Execute Their Oldest Death Row Inmates Thursday Evening

Topline

The Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon denied a 78-year-old Texas man’s last-ditch effort to delay his execution, and the high court reportedly also shot down a similar request from a 72-year-old Tennessee man, setting up what could be rare simultaneous executions in the U.S. Thursday evening for both states’ oldest death row inmates.

Key Facts

Carl Buntion, 78, will be put to death by lethal injection inside a Huntsville, Texas, prison some time after 6 p.m. Central time, making him the first person executed in Texas this year.

In Tennessee, 72-year-old Oscar Franklin Smith will die by lethal injection in a procedure starting at 7 p.m. Central time, in the state’s first execution since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Tennessean, citing Smith’s attorney, reported the Supreme Court denied his request for a stay Thursday afternoon, shortly after Buntion’s request was denied.

The unspecified timing of Buntion’s execution makes it possible the two could take place at the same time.

Key Background

Smith has been on death row since 1990, when he was convicted of stabbing his estranged wife and her two teenage sons to death inside a Nashville home in 1989. Buntion was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 1991 for fatally shooting a Houston police officer during a traffic stop. Smith has maintained his innocence in the triple murder, and his legal team argues there is DNA evidence that would exonerate him of the crime, but requests from his attorneys to reopen the case have been denied. Buntion’s lawyers have argued his advanced age and years of good behavior mean he is no longer a threat to society and should be spared the death penalty.

Tangent

The Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked the state of South Carolina from executing Richard Moore, who was set to die by firing squad in what would have been the state’s first execution using that method. The court did not state a reason for granting a stay on Moore’s execution, but his legal team argued the state was subjecting Moore to cruel and unusual punishment by forcing him to choose between either a firing squad or the electric chair. Lethal injections, once the dominant method of executions in the U.S., have become more rare as drug companies move to block the sale of drugs used for executions.

Further Reading

Texas plans Thursday execution for Carl Buntion, the state’s oldest death row prisoner (Texas Tribune)

Oscar Smith Tennessee execution: Federal judge lets execution go ahead, forbids autopsy (Tennessean)

South Carolina Supreme Court Temporarily Halts State’s First Firing Squad Execution (Forbes)