May 23 (UPI) -- Tennessee has carried out the United States' 19th execution of the year, killing 75-year-old death row inmate Oscar Smith for the murder of his estranged wife and her two teenage sons in 1989.
Smith, wearing a yellow prison uniform and strapped to a gurney, was executed by lethal injection at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, and was pronounced dead at 10:47 a.m. CST Thursday, the Tennessee Department of Correction said in a statement.
Smith maintained that he did not kill Judith Lynn Smith, 35, and her sons from a previous marriage, Chad Burnett, 16, and Jason Burnett, 13, on the night of Oct. 1, 1989.
In his final statement he criticized the justice system, saying "it doesn't work," according to media witnesses, who spoke during a press conference following the execution.
He said too many innocent people, like him, are killed and that more men are waiting to die.
