Tennessee Trial Court Denies Motion to Halt Upcoming Execution Based on New DNA Evidence

A Nashville tri­al judge has denied a Tennessee death-row prisoner’s motion to reopen his case and halt his sched­uled April 21, 2022 exe­cu­tion in light of new DNA evidence. 

In a motion filed April 4, 2022, lawyers for Oscar Smith had argued that evi­dence from ​“touch DNA” — a new DNA test­ing tech­nol­o­gy — on an awl used in the mur­der of Smith’s estranged wife and her two sons in 1989 ​“defin­i­tive­ly exclud­ed” Smith and sug­gest­ed that anoth­er, unknown male had been involved in the mur­ders. The three were shot and stabbed with a knife and an awl, the only mur­der weapon recov­ered from the crime scene. 

In January 2022, with the agree­ment of both pros­e­cu­tors and the defense, the tri­al court released the awl for test­ing with the touch DNA tech­nol­o­gy. ​“The sig­nif­i­cance of this result can­not be over­stat­ed,” Smith’s lawyers wrote in the motion. ​“Oscar Smith has, using his new touch DNA tech­nol­o­gy, demon­strat­ed that he is not the per­son who used the awl to kill his family.”

Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Angelina Blackshear Dalton dis­agreed. In a 13-page order issued April 12, 2022, she wrote, “[t]here is not a rea­son­able prob­a­bil­i­ty that the recent­ly dis­cov­ered DNA evi­dence would have pre­vent­ed Mr. Smith’s pros­e­cu­tion or con­vic­tion. Nor is there a rea­son­able prob­a­bil­i­ty the recent­ly-dis­cov­ered DNA evi­dence would have result­ed in a more favor­able con­vic­tion or sen­tence for Mr. Smith had the DNA evi­dence been pre­sent­ed at trial.”

Smith has appealed the tri­al court’s order. ​“The crim­i­nal court refused to hear Mr. Smith’s claim that DNA evi­dence shows that an unknown assailant — not Mr. Smith — used the bloody mur­der weapon found at the crime scene,” Smith’s lawyer, assis­tant fed­er­al pub­lic defend­er Amy D. Harwell, said in a statement.

Smith, 72, had pre­vi­ous­ly appealed to reopen the case based on alleged errors made by the crime scene inves­ti­ga­tor who tes­ti­fied for the pros­e­cu­tion. The inves­ti­ga­tor tes­ti­fied that a bloody palm print found on the sheet next to one of the vic­tims was miss­ing two fin­gers and that there was ​“no doubt” the print belonged to Smith, who is miss­ing two fin­gers on his left hand. 

Defense lawyers have argued that the pros­e­cu­tion expert made ​“egre­gious” errors, includ­ing leav­ing his own fin­ger­prints on the awl, and that his ​“incom­pe­tence and lack of pro­fes­sion­al­ism” makes the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion tes­ti­mo­ny sus­pect and unre­li­able. The motion said that the touch DNA evi­dence exclud­ing Smith and impli­cat­ing anoth­er per­son fur­ther under­mines the prosecution’s palm print tes­ti­mo­ny, which defense lawyers called the state’s ​“most impor­tant piece of evidence.” 

The tri­al court pre­vi­ous­ly reject­ed that argu­ment, and its rul­ing was affirmed in March 2022 by the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals. 

Smith is also part of a fed­er­al law­suit chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. Tennessee uses a three-drug pro­to­col of mida­zo­lam, a seda­tive; vecuro­ni­um bro­mide, a par­a­lyt­ic; and potas­si­um chlo­ride, which stops the prisoner’s heart. The suit sets forth a vari­ety of con­cerns about the pro­to­col, includ­ing that mida­zo­lam is unsuit­able for use in exe­cu­tions and that the state was aware of prob­lems with the prepa­ra­tion of its potas­si­um chlo­ride but failed to dis­close those prob­lems to the pris­on­ers and the courts.

The U.S. Supreme Court requires pris­on­ers who chal­lenge the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of a state’s exe­cu­tion method to pro­pose an alter­nate method by which the state can take their life. Smith offered exe­cu­tion by fir­ing squad as his alter­na­tive to lethal injec­tion. If the exe­cu­tion goes for­ward, it would be Tennessee’s first since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.