Tennessee Governor Allows State’s First Execution in Five Years to Proceed Despite Concerns Over Lethal Injection Drug

On May 22, 2025, Tennessee exe­cut­ed Oscar Smith by lethal injec­tion, mark­ing the state’s first exe­cu­tion in five years despite a pend­ing law­suit chal­leng­ing the state’s new lethal injec­tion pro­to­col that relies on one drug — pen­to­bar­bi­tal. Other death row pris­on­ers and attor­neys for Mr. Smith had urged Governor Bill Lee to grant a reprieve, cit­ing an upcom­ing January 2026 tri­al that will deter­mine the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the new exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. They argued that sig­nif­i­cant con­cerns per­sist regard­ing the safe­ty and effec­tive­ness of the state’s lethal injec­tion chem­i­cals, as well as ques­tions about the qual­i­fi­ca­tions of those car­ry­ing out the exe­cu­tion. But in a state­ment days before Mr. Smith’s exe­cu­tion, Gov. Lee announced, ​“After delib­er­ate con­sid­er­a­tion of Oscar Franklin Smith’s request for clemen­cy, and after a thor­ough review of the case, I am uphold­ing the sen­tence of the State of Tennessee.”

In March 2025, a group of nine death row pris­on­ers in Tennessee, includ­ing Mr. Smith, filed a law­suit chal­leng­ing the state’s sole use of pen­to­bar­bi­tal in its new pro­to­col, argu­ing it cre­ates a ​“high risk of a tor­tur­ous death.” In December 2024, the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) com­plet­ed a mul­ti-year review of its lethal injec­tion pro­to­col, which includ­ed the shift from a three-drug com­bi­na­tion to just pen­to­bar­bi­tal. The law­suit alleges pen­to­bar­bi­tal is ​“a poi­son that has been shown through recent evi­dence to post a high risk of a tor­tur­ous death, par­tic­u­lar­ly if obtained, stored, han­dled, and/​or admin­is­tered incor­rect­ly.” According to the claim, TDOC’s ​“cul­ture of non­com­pli­ance, when com­bined with the risk-prone nature of pen­to­bar­bi­tal poi­son­ing as a method of exe­cu­tion, cre­ates a high risk that a per­son receiv­ing a lethal injec­tion admin­is­tered by TDOC will be tor­tured to death.” 

The law­suit also points to a 2020 review of 200 autop­sies of indi­vid­u­als exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion, includ­ing 58 pris­on­ers exe­cut­ed by pen­to­bar­bi­tal. 49 of the 58 ​“expe­ri­enced pul­monary ede­ma, a con­di­tion in which flu­id accu­mu­lates in the air spaces of the lungs.” Pulmonary ede­ma, the chal­lenge explains, ​“can cre­ate a sense of suf­fo­cat­ing or drown­ing that has been likened by experts to the sen­sa­tion inten­tion­al­ly induced by the prac­tice of water­board­ing — an unam­bigu­ous form of out­right tor­ture.” The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved pen­to­bar­bi­tal for use in exe­cu­tions or caus­ing human deaths, and the Department of Justice with­drew a sim­i­lar pro­to­col in the wan­ing days of the Biden Administration because of seri­ous con­cerns regard­ing its use.

On May 15, the Davidson County Chancery Court reject­ed the state’s attempt to dis­miss the major­i­ty of the pris­on­ers’ legal chal­lenges, which includ­ed con­sti­tu­tion­al objec­tions to the revised exe­cu­tion method under the Eighth Amendment. The fol­low­ing day, the court heard argu­ments on the state’s peti­tion to keep con­fi­den­tial the names of its drug sup­pli­er and exe­cu­tion per­son­nel. A deci­sion on that mat­ter remains outstanding.

In May 2022, Gov. Lee paused all exe­cu­tions and called for an ​“inde­pen­dent review” of the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col to address a ​“tech­ni­cal over­sight” that led him to halt Oscar Smith’s exe­cu­tion less than a half-hour before it was sched­uled to be car­ried out on April 21, 2022. Retired for­mer U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton, at Gov. Lee’s appoint­ment, com­plet­ed a review of Tennessee’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col and found that the same lax over­sight that occurred in the lead up to Mr. Smith’s sched­uled exe­cu­tion had also occurred in the prepa­ra­tions for the sev­en pre­vi­ous exe­cu­tions. According to Mr. Stanton’s find­ings, the state’s pre­vi­ous exe­cu­tion pro­to­col required the drugs be test­ed for poten­cy, steril­i­ty, and endo­tox­in con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, but TDOC repeat­ed­ly vio­lat­ed that require­ment, test­ing for endo­tox­ins in only one of eight pre­pared dos­es of lethal injec­tion. In response, Gov. Lee ordered a num­ber of spe­cif­ic changes, includ­ing a revi­sion of the state’s lethal injection protocol.