Man on death row in Tennessee given stay of execution due to coronavirus

Texas has already rescheduled five executions

An American lethal injection chamber photographed in 2010 (AP)

A man on death row in Tennessee has been given a stay of execution due to the coronavirus.

Oscar Smith was convicted and scheduled to be executed on June 4 for the 1989 murders of his estranged wife and her two sons from a previous marriage.

That has now been rescheduled for February 2021 in order to protect the health and safety of execution witnesses and allow Mr Smith to prepare a clemency petition.

Mr Smith’s attorneys had argued that they had lost time to work on his case due to restrictions in place to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

“It makes no sense to bring execution witnesses and other people into the prison and possibly expose them to Covid-19 infection or introduce the virus into the prison population,” Kelley Henry, Mr Smith’s attorney, told the Associated Press.

“Mr Smith, who has always maintained his innocence, needs to meet with his attorneys to prepare a clemency petition and investigators need to interview people to get information for the clemency petition. None of that face-to-face work can happen at this time without risking public health.”

Tennessee is not the first state to delay executions due to the pandemic. Texas has already delayed five executions.

Mr Smith, 70, was sentenced to death by a jury in 1990 for the murders of Judy Robirds Smith, and her sons, Jason and Chad Burnett, 13 and 16.

In the trial, a fingerprint examiner testified that a bloody palm print found next to Judy Smith’s body matched Mr Smith’s left hand.

— With agencies