Oklahoma prepares to execute Michael DeWayne Smith for 2002 murders

OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma is scheduled to execute a man Thursday for fatally shooting two people in Oklahoma City more than two decades ago.

Michael DeWayne Smith, 41, will become the fourth inmate in the nation this year to be put to death if he doesn't get a last-minute stay. Alabama, Texas, and Georgia already have carried out executions, according to a database kept by the Death Penalty Information Center.

Smith would be the first person executed in the state this year and the 12th since capital punishment resumed in 2021. He is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Thursday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday denied his request, for the fourth time, for an emergency stay. Smith also was seeking an emergency stay at the U.S. Supreme Court. Smith claims he is innocent even and told the parole board he was hallucinating from drug use when he confessed to police.

His attorneys also have claimed he is intellectually disabled.

"I don't want to die, man," Smith told The Oklahoman, part of the USA TODAY Network, on Monday in a phone interview. "Who can ever be prepared to die, man? I sure don't want to die for something I didn't do."

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Michael DeWayne Smith's case

Smith was convicted at trial of first-degree murder for two fatal shootings in Oklahoma City on Feb. 22, 2002. Jurors agreed he should be executed for both deaths.

The first victim, Janet Moore, 40, was shot at her apartment. The second victim, Sharath Babu Pulluru, 24, was shot nine times at a convenience store then doused with lighter fluid and set on fire. Neither was Smith's original target, according to testimony at the 2003 trial.

At the time, Smith was 19 years old and a member of a street gang in Oklahoma City known as the Oak Grove Posse. He also was high on PCP and hiding from police, who had a warrant for his arrest on a 2001 murder case.

Prosecutors claim that Smith was initially looking for Moore's son, who he mistakenly thought was a police informant.

"It's her fault she died," Smith told police. "She panicked and she got shot. ... She like, 'Help! Help!' I'm like, I had to. I had no choice."

Smith then went to a convenience store and shot an employee, who Smith believed had made comments to a newspaper about a robbery at another store, prosecutors said. He instead killed Pulluru, who was filling in at the store for a friend.

The shootings in 2002 came days before a trial for two other gang members involved in the robbery was set to begin. Smith confessed to his roommate and a neighbor before his arrest, according to their testimony at his trial.

Smith was also convicted at a separate trial of second-degree murder for the fatal shooting of a man outside an Oklahoma City club on Nov. 24, 2001. He had admitted to police that he handed the gun to the shooter.

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 4-1 on March 6 to deny Smith clemency. That vote means Gov. Kevin Stitt cannot commute his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Oklahoma's execution pace has slowed

Oklahoma resumed executions in late October 2021 after a hiatus of more than six years. By mid-2022, four had taken place, and 25 more were scheduled through the end of 2024.

The schedule proved to be too ambitious. Some inmates got stays, and the Oklahoma Department of Corrections had to be given more time between executions to reduce the stress on staff. The last execution was in November.

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals was asked in January for even more time, 90-day intervals, once the next two executions are carried out.

"The present pace of executions, every 60 days, is too onerous and not sustainable," said Steven Harpe, the executive director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.