One Execution, One Reprieve: Scheduled Executions of Oldest Death-Row Prisoners in Texas and Tennessee Illustrate Aging of Death Row

One Execution, One Reprieve: Scheduled Executions of Oldest Death-Row Prisoners in Texas and Tennessee Illustrate Aging of Death Row

In a coincidence that brought attention to the aging of death row across the United States, the oldest death-row prisoners in Tennessee and Texas faced execution in their respective states on April 21, 2022. After the U.S. Supreme Court denied stays of execution for both prisoners, their cases took different paths. Oscar Franklin Smith, a 71-year-old who spent 22 years on death row in Tennessee, was notified while receiving communion that he had received a reprieve. Carl Wayne Buntion (pictured), a 78-year-old who spent 31 years on death row in Texas and who just days before had been taken to the hospital suffering from pneumonia and blood in his urine, was executed. Buntion had sought to halt his execution on grounds that his death sentence was predicated upon a false prediction that he would pose a continuing threat if spared the death penalty. His clemency petition, which was denied April 19, argued the “Mr. Buntion is a frail, elderly man who requires specialized care to perform basic functions. He is not a threat to anyone in prison and will not be a threat to anyone in prison if his sentence is reduced to a lesser penalty.” In his 31 years sentenced to death, “he has been cited for only three disciplinary infractions,” the petition said, “and he has not been cited for any infraction whatsoever for the last twenty-three years.”

an intravenous execution line. Hamm died in November 2021 at age 64.

Alabama also attempted to execute Vernon Madison in 2016, who suffered from vascular dementia as a result of several strokes that left him legally blind, incontinent, unable to walk independently, and without memory of the offense for which he was sentenced to death or an understanding of why he was to be executed. After several trips to the U.S. Supreme Court, his case was remanded for a hearing on whether he was competent to be executed. Because of his medical condition, that hearing never occurred, and he died on death row in February 2020 at age 69. Idaho death-row prisoner Gerald Pizzuto, Jr. was 64 years old and suffering from advanced bladder cancer, chronic heart and coronary artery disease, coronary obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and Type 2 diabetes with related nerve damage to his legs and feet and was in hospice care when a warrant was issued for his execution in 2021. The Idaho pardons commission recommended commuting his death sentence and Governor Brad Little rejected the recommendation, triggering ongoing litigation over which entity has final authority over clemency. The aging of death row raises humanitarian issues, separate and apart from the risk of botched executions and mental incompetency. Speaking to the Associated Press in 2018 about the aging of death row, DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham noted that, while many of the prisoners facing execution have been convicted of terrible crimes, the public is “torn between wanting to punish [them] severely and the belief it is beneath us as a nation to kill a frail person who is already dying. It’s a challenge to our morality and our sense of humanity,” Dunham said.

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