An inmate executed by Tennessee without deactivating his implanted defibrillator said he was hurting badly shortly after the lethal injection began, according to several witnesses.
Byron Black was put to death despite uncertainty about whether the device would shock his heart when the lethal chemicals took effect. His attorney said they will review data kept by the device as part of an autopsy.
Black died at 10:43 a.m., prison officials said. It was about 10 minutes after the execution started and Black talked about being in pain.
Black looked around the room as the execution started and could be heard sighing and breathing heavily. All seven media witnesses to the execution agreed he appeared to be in discomfort.
Black was executed after a back-and-forth in court over whether officials would need to turn off his implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, or ICD. Black, 69, was in a wheelchair, suffering from dementia, brain damage, kidney failure, congestive heart failure and other conditions, his attorneys have said.
The nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center said it’s unaware of any other cases in which an inmate was making similar claims to Black’s about ICDs or pacemakers. Black’s attorneys said they haven’t found a comparable case, either.
Black killed his girlfriend and her 2 daughters
Black was convicted in the 1988 shooting deaths of his girlfriend Angela Clay, 29, and her two daughters, Latoya Clay, 9, and Lakeisha Clay, 6. Prosecutors said he was in a jealous rage when he shot the three at their home. At the time, Black was on work-release while serving time for shooting Clay’s estranged husband.
Clay’s sister said Black will now have to take up what he did with a higher power.
“His family is now going through the same thing we went through 37 years ago. I can’t say I’m sorry because we never got an apology,” Linette Bell, Angela Clay’s sister, said in a statement read by a victim’s advocate after the execution.
Black’s lawyer said the execution was shameful.
“Today, the state of Tennessee killed a gentle, kind, fragile, intellectually disabled man in a violation of the laws of our country simply because they could,” attorney Kelley Henry said.
The legal fight over Black’s defibrillator
In mid-July, a trial court judge agreed with Black’s attorneys that officials must have the defibrillator deactivated to avert the risk that it could cause unnecessary pain and prolong the execution. But the state Supreme Court intervened Thursday to overturn that decision, saying the other judge lacked authority to order the change.
The state disputed that the lethal injection would cause Black’s defibrillator to shock him and said he wouldn’t feel them regardless.
Henry said Black’s defense team will carefully review autopsy results, EKG data from Black and information from the defibrillator to determine what exactly happened during the execution.
She said she was especially concerned about his head movement and complaints of pain…
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