NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Both Tennessee and Texas are planning to execute two males Thursday who’re the oldest folks on loss of life row in every of their states.
Tennessee plans to execute Oscar Franklin Smith, 72, by deadly injection for the 1989 brutal triple slaying of his estranged spouse and her two teenage sons. He could be the primary particular person executed in the state because the pandemic started.
Nearly 750 miles southwest, Carl Wayne Buntion, 78, is scheduled to be put to loss of life in Texas by the identical means for the 1990 homicide of Houston Police Officer James Irby.
The males might be concurrently killed. Smith’s execution is set for 7 p.m. CDT in Nashville whereas Buntion’s is for any time after 6 p.m. CDT in Huntsville, Texas.Â
No different executions are scheduled on the identical day by means of not less than 2026, state information present. There have solely been 5Â different occurrences of two executions scheduled on the identical day since 2015.
Texas’s final execution happened in September 2021. The slowing of executions was notable in the state, which frequently tallies 5 instances extra executions yearly than the subsequent 5 states mixed.Â
Tennessee’s final execution happened in February 2020, earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic. The state resumed capital punishment in 2018 after a nine-year break.
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Tennessee set to execute Oscar Franklin Smith
Smith was certainly one of 47 folks on loss of life row in Tennessee on Wednesday. He was convicted of killing Judith Robirds Smith, 35, and her sons Chad Burnett, 16, and Jason Burnett, 13, inside a Nashville residence on Oct. 1, 1989.
A former machinist, Smith was 40 when he shot his estranged spouse in the neck then stabbed her a number of instances. He shot her eldest son in the left eye after which in the higher chest and left torso. Her youthful son was stabbed in the neck and stomach, then gutted. All three victims had been discovered with their throats slashed.
During the investigation, a bloody handprint — lacking two fingers — was discovered on a bedsheet beside Robirds Smith’s physique. Smith, who had just lately filed for divorce from his spouse, was lacking two fingers.
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Before the killings, Smith was additionally engaged in a custody battle along with her over their 3-year-old twin boys. Their mom had additionally filed a number of home violence costs in opposition to him in current months — not solely on her behalf but in addition for her teenage sons.
Smith has denied his involvement in the killings.
On Thursday, Smith will probably be delivered his chosen final meal: a double bacon cheeseburger, a deep-dish apple pie and vanilla bean ice cream, the Tennessee Department of Correction mentioned.
Texas set to execute Carl Wayne Buntion
Buntion, the eldest particular person on Texas loss of life row in the Lone Star state, was certainly one of 199 folks awaiting execution there Wednesday.
Buntion had been on parole for simply six weeks when he fatally Irby, 37, throughout a June 1990 site visitors cease. Buntion was a passenger in the automobile that Irby pulled over on a motorbike.
Irby was shot in the top and again as he talked to the motive force of the automobile.
Buntion had tried to get out of the automobile and go away and was ordered to return by the officer. Witnesses in one other automobile noticed the capturing and screamed, and Buntion opened hearth on Irby and one other 18-year Houston police officer, injuring them.
He fled on foot and ultimately turned himself in to police.
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Buntion has by no means denied the capturing however has mentioned it was in self-defense.
He was convicted of capital homicide and sentenced to loss of life in 1991, however the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals vacated his loss of life sentence in 2009. A jury in 2012 returned him to loss of life row following a brand new sentencing trial.
In October, the U.S. Supreme Court denied an enchantment by Buntion’s legal professionals.Â
Contributing: Molly Davis, the Tennessean; the Associated Press
Follow Natalie Neysa Alund on Twitter @nataliealund.