Steven Hale

1 week ago | nashvillebanner.com | Steven Hale

If Metro Council approval for the deployment of license plate readers around Nashville already looked like a long shot, it’s only more so now after a member of the body invoked the technology while defending recent immigration sweeps alongside a Donald Trump ally. The Memorial Day press conference headlined by U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles primarily served as a stage for the Republican congressman to train his ire on Mayor Freddie O’Connell.

1 week ago | themoorecountynews.com | Steven Hale

Oscar Franklin Smith was executed by the state Thursday, May 22, nearly 35 years after a Nashville jury convicted him for the 1989 murders of his estranged wife, Judy Smith, and her two teenage sons, Chad and Jason Burnett. His execution by lethal injection marks the return of Tennessee’s death penalty after more than five years. It was also the first to be carried out with pentobarbital under the state’s new single-drug lethal injection protocol.

2 weeks ago | nashvillebanner.com | Steven Hale

Shortly before midnight on Oct. 1, 1989, the Metro Nashville Police Department received a 911 call from a home in Woodbine. The dispatcher heard screaming male voices and an address before the line suddenly went quiet. Officers dispatched to the home minutes later reported finding nothing out of the ordinary. But the following afternoon, a 13-year-old neighbor went inside and discovered a hellish scene.

3 weeks ago | nashvillebanner.com | Steven Hale

Sometime last Thursday, two weeks before his scheduled execution, Oscar Smith was moved away from the other men on death row and into almost complete isolation. Until he is moved again, to a small cell near the execution chamber, his only human interactions will be with his legal team, a spiritual advisor and the prison staff assigned to monitor him around the clock and record all of his activities. He has been on death watch before.

3 weeks ago | nashvillebanner.com | Steven Hale

The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency on Tuesday trumpeted the results of the recent operation that incited outrage, panic and confusion around Nashville. The agency, which worked alongside the Tennessee Highway Patrol to stop and question upwards of 500 drivers last week, revealed the most information to date about the operation, but left many unanswered questions about how it was carried out and who was swept up in it.