Tennessee executes Oscar Franklin Smith

The state of Tennessee has executed Oscar Franklin Smith, sentenced to death for the 1989 killings of his estranged wife Judith Robirds Smith and her two teenage sons, Chad Burnett and Jason Burnett, in Nashville.

Smith, 75, was killed by a fatal dose of the drug pentobarbital injected into his veins at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. He was pronounced dead at 10:47 a.m. May 22.

Smith's execution marks a return to capital punishment in Tennessee after the governor instituted a moratorium on the state's most severe penalty. It had been five years since a Tennessee prisoner died by execution and six years since the state killed someone by lethal injection.

It was also Smith's fourth execution date.

Smith's execution first to use new protocol

Gov. Bill Lee, who denied Smith's clemency request May 20, had stepped in at the 11th hour to stop Smith's lethal injection years before. With less than an hour before he was to die April 21, 2022, Lee granted Smith a temporary reprieve due to concerns over the preparation of the lethal injection drugs.

It was later revealed the Tennessee Department of Correction had failed to test the drugs in previous executions for endotoxins, a step in its own protocol. It finalized a new protocol in late 2024 that granted substantial discretion to prison officials and changed the lethal agent to pentobarbital.

Smith, ahead of this execution, declined to select whether to die by lethal injection or electrocution. Lethal injection is the default method.

The new protocol doesn’t even include the safeguards that TDOC broke last time. It’s as if, having been caught breaking their own rules, TDOC decided let’s just not have rules.

At the time of his death, Smith was involved in a lawsuit in Davidson County Chancery Court with eight other men on death row over the supposed "torturous" effects of pentobarbital, the Tennessee Department of Correction’s past failures to follow its own protocols, and secrecy over how the state procured the drugs it used to kill Smith. The Biden administration in January abandoned pentobarbital for use in its executions due to concerns of "unnecessary pain and suffering."

Smith was the 19th person executed in the U.S. this year. A total of 36 were scheduled for 2025, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Smith sentenced to death for 1989 triple murder in Nashville

Smith was born in Ohio in 1950, one of seven children. His family later moved to Robertson County.

He met Judith Lynn Robirds, a waitress at a Waffle House, and the couple married in 1985. They had two children together and separated in June 1989.

On Oct. 2, 1989, Robirds Smith, 35, and her sons from a previous marriage, 16-year-old Chad Burnett and 13-year-old Jason Burnett, were found dead in their home on Lutie Court in Nashville's Woodbine neighborhood. Smith, 39 years old and working as a machinist, was arrested a month later.

Prosecutors say he shot his estranged wife in the neck then stabbed her several times. He shot her eldest son in the left eye and then in the upper chest and left torso. His younger brother was stabbed in the neck and abdomen.

After Jason called 911 the night of Oct. 1, police came to the residence on Lutie Court but found nothing unusual outside and left. The victims' bodies were discovered 15 hours later by Judith Robirds Smith's 8-year-old nephew.

Co-workers said Smith threatened to kill his wife on at least 12 occasions between June and August 1989. Smith told one he threatened to kill the boys because he said she treated them better than the twin children the couple shared. The twins were age 3 at the time of the triple murder.

Smith also had two children from his first marriage.

Smith always said he was innocent and testified in his defense during his trial. In 2022, he raised the issue to the court that an unknown person’s DNA was found on an awl, an icepick-like tool believed to be one of the murder weapons.

There was, however, plenty of evidence that linked him to the crime. That included the fact his car was seen at the victim's home the night of the crime and the fact Chad Burnett called out, "Frank, no! God help me," on the 911 call. Franklin is Smith's middle name.

Judges found the DNA evidence was not strong enough to reopen his case.

Dozens protest death penalty outside prison

Around 40 protesters gathered in a grassy field outside the prison at 9:30 the morning of the execution. Protesters were barred from bringing in their phones, a policy prison officials had never before implemented, according to longtime death penalty activist Kevin Riggs. Some wore shirts that read: “STOP EXECUTIONS NOW!”

Others participated in an online vigil for the three victims and Smith in the hour before his execution.

“My heart is with these prisoners; I do not believe in state-mandated murder,” said Franklin resident Pam Reed. “It doesn’t come necessarily from my religious beliefs; it comes from my heart.”

Riggs, who serves as a spiritual advisor to some on death row, said he last spoke with Smith two weeks ago. He said Smith seemed at peace with what would happen.

Riggs, who has long protested capital punishment, said he hopes to see change eventually.

The world is not going to be magically safer at 10:30 today, after Smith is executed.

“There is no justice in the death penalty, it doesn’t make anyone safer,” he said. “The world is not going to be magically safer at 10:30 today (after Smith is executed).”

Charlie Barton, who drove from Knoxville to protest outside the prison, said the death penalty goes against his beliefs as a Christian.

“No one is beyond redemption,” he said. “Every life is precious.”

David Bass came with a special, woven leather Bible cover that Smith hand made for him.

The cover has Bass’ name with a set of praying hands.

Bass said got to know Smith by attending weekly events at the prison.

“I’m here for Oscar and all the men in there for solidarity,” he said.

Witness of crime supports execution

William Floyd Burgess, 72, was one of two people standing in support of the execution the morning of May 22. Burgess said he was the first witness on the scene of the murders that day after a neighbor asked him to check the home. “It was awful,” he said.

Burgess said he believes Smith’s time on death row has been a waste of taxpayer money. “I don’t want to see nobody die, but if they done it, they got to,” he said.

Smith spent last two weeks in isolation

Ahead of his execution, Smith was without legal recourse to pursue his claims of innocence again. His attorneys condemned his execution moving forward before a judge reviewed the current execution protocol and also felt concern over the unknown DNA.

“If it's your life on the line, it is just not something somebody can take in — that the courts just don't care," Amy Harwell, assistant chief of the capital habeas unit in the federal public defender’s office, said in an interview six days before his execution.

Under the new protocol, Smith spent the last two weeks of his life in an isolated unit of the prison, an extended period compared to earlier years. He was visited by his attorneys and spiritual adviser during that time.

Source: tennessean.com, Kirsten Fiscus, Evan Mealins, May 22, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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