The 4th Execution of 2024
Michael Dewayne Smith who was convicted of shooting and killing two people in
Oklahoma City more than two decades ago was executed on April 4, 2024, reported The Associated Press.
Smith received a lethal injection at
the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and was pronounced dead at 10:20
a.m., Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokesperson Lance West said.
After the first of three lethal drugs, midazolam, was
administered, Smith, 41, appeared to shake briefly and attempt to lift his head
from the gurney before relaxing. He then took several short, audible breaths
that sounded like snores or gasps. Oklahoma DOC Director Steven Harpe said
after the execution that Smith “appeared to have some form of sleep apnea.”
A masked doctor entered the execution chamber at 10:14
a.m. and shook Smith several times before declaring him unconscious.
Smith appeared to stop breathing about a minute later.
The doctor reentered the execution chamber at 10:19 a.m. and checked for a
pulse before Harpe announced the time of death.
Smith was sentenced to die in the separate shooting
deaths of Janet Moore, 41, and Sharath Pulluru, 22, in February 2002. He is the
first person executed in Oklahoma this year and the 12th put to death since the
state resumed executions in 2021 following a nearly seven-year hiatus resulting
from problems
with executions in 2014 and 2015.
Given
the opportunity to say last words, Smith responded, “Nah, I’m good.”
Moore’s son
Phillip Zachary Jr. and niece Morgan Miller-Perkins witnessed the execution
from behind one-way glass. Attorney General Gentner Drummond read a statement
on their behalf that said in part: “Justice has been served.”
Drummond, in his own statement, called Moore “a rock
for her family” and said Pulluru “was an inspiration to his family” as the
first member to come to the United States for an education.
“Janet and Sharath were murdered simply because they
were in the wrong place at the wrong time; that was all. I am grateful that
justice has been served,” Drummond said.
During a clemency
hearing last month, Smith expressed his “deepest sorrows” to the victims’
families, but denied he was responsible.
“I didn’t commit these crimes. I didn’t kill these
people,” Smith said, occasionally breaking into tears during his 15-minute
address to the board, which denied him clemency in a 4-1 vote. “I was high on
drugs. I don’t even remember getting arrested.”
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday morning denied a
stay of execution requested by Smith’s attorneys, who argued that his
confession to police was not sufficiently corroborated.
Prosecutors say Smith was a ruthless gang member who
killed both victims in misguided acts of revenge and confessed his involvement
in the killings to police and two other people.
They claim he killed Moore because he was looking for
her son, who he mistakenly thought had told police about his whereabouts. Later
that day, prosecutors say Smith killed Pulluru, a convenience store clerk who
Smith believed had disrespected his gang during an interview with a newspaper
reporter.
Smith’s attorney, Mark Henricksen, argued that Smith
is intellectually disabled, a condition worsened by years of heavy drug use,
and that his life should be spared and he should be allowed to spend the rest
of it in prison. Henricksen said Smith was in a PCP-induced haze when he
confessed to police and that key elements of his confession aren’t supported by
facts.
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