A man who was convicted of killing two people in Oklahoma more than two decades ago was executed Thursday, making it the state’s first execution this year. The Department of Corrections reports that Michael Dewayne Smith passed away at 10:20 a.m. following a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
The execution follows the state’s contentious decision to reinstate death punishment in 2021, after botched executions called its protocols into question.
When asked if he had any final comments, Smith said, “Nah, I’m good,” according to the Associated Press.
Two decades ago, authorities sentenced Smith, 41, to death in Oklahoma for the murders of Janet Moore, a 41-year-old mother, and Sharath Pulluru, a 22-year-old store worker. The shootings that murdered them occurred separately on February 22, 2002, while Smith was already on the run following a previous killing, according to officials.
Oklahoma’s execution process began at 10:09 a.m. on Thursday and lasted just over 10 minutes, according to state prisons director Steven Harpe in a statement obtained by CBS News. The report deemed Smith unconscious at 10:14 a.m. According to the director, Smith requested that a spiritual counselor join him in the death chamber. The detainee did not request a final supper.
“Today’s event and the circumstances that led to it have affected many people—eespecially the family and friends of victims Janet Moore and Sharath Pulluru,” Harpe stated in a press release. “As an agency, we carried out the court’s orders according to our high standards of professionalism and respect for those in our custody, ensuring dignity for all involved in the process.”
Smith attempted to appeal his conviction several times over the course of his imprisonment, according to records. Smith and his legal team have asserted, among other defense arguments, that despite his prior confessions to both killings, he is not responsible for either of them. They argued for clemency on the basis of an alleged prior substance addiction issue and intellectual handicap, because a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the latter would prevent Oklahoma from killing him. The court denied all of Smith’s appeals.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond formally requested the state’s Pardon and Parole Board to deny Smith’s clemency petition prior to a March hearing that determined his fate.
Drummond stated, “The court has repeatedly rejected Michael Smith’s outrageous claims of innocence.” “He is a merciless killer who has admitted to his atrocities several times. Without a doubt, we should deny his request for clemency.
Drummond claimed that evidence discovered at the scene of both murders supported Smith’s confession. He also disregarded the inmate’s request for leniency based on an alleged intellectual handicap, stating that Smith’s IQ results made that claim “statutorily ineligible.”
At the court, Smith denied any involvement in the murders but expressed his “deepest apologies and deepest sorrows to the families” of the victims, according to the Associated Press.
“I did not commit these crimes.” “I didn’t kill these people,” Smith remarked with emotion. “I was high from narcotics. “I don’t even remember being arrested.”
The parole board ultimately rejected Smith’s mercy plea on a 4-1 vote, setting up his execution.
Earlier this week, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals rejected Smith’s request for an emergency stay of execution, according to CBS affiliate KOTV. According to the station, the criminal appeals court denied his third and last emergency plea in recent months, which included a motion for post-conviction DNA testing.
According to KOTV, the court stated that conducting additional tests would not change the validity of Smith’s conviction, citing the appeals court’s references to “a very detailed, highly corroborated confession” given to police, which was allegedly supported by other confessions and crime scene evidence.
CBS News called the Oklahoma Department of Corrections for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
Smith was one of 43 convicts on Oklahoma’s execution row. He was the first person killed there this year and the twelfth since the state reinstated death punishment following a seven-year hiatus in 2021. That pause was prompted by a series of botched fatal injections in 2014 and 2015, most notably the botched execution of Charles Warner, a former death row inmate who witnesses claimed suffered unduly in the death chamber. Oklahoma was later determined to have utilized an inappropriate and illegal medication in the lethal injection combination used for Warner’s execution.
Oklahoma decided to halt executions while investigations into what went wrong were underway. However, in late 2021, months before a scheduled court trial to review its lethal injection process, the state resumed executions. The state resumed executions, but the lethal injection botched the first execution of former convict John Grant.
Oklahoma passed its own state policy legalizing death punishment in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The first execution took place in 1990, and the state has killed 123 inmates since then. Oklahoma also carried out one federal execution.
Another Oklahoma death row inmate, 60-year-old Richard Glossip, is now appealing his sentence and has made progress with state officials, including the attorney general, who have publicly advocated his innocence. In January, the Supreme Court decided to consider Glossip’s case after Drummond asserted that flaws in his trial should invalidate the prisoner’s conviction and sentence.
