Tennessee became the first state to execute an inmate who had an implanted defibrillator in his chest.
Byron Black, 69, died Tuesday morning despite an unsuccessful legal fight to have the defibrillator turned off before the execution.
His lawyers had also asked the Supreme Court to intervene in his case ahead of Tuesday’s scheduled execution over a claim that he lacked mental acuity since birth. On Monday, the justices rejected the request.
“Oh, it’s hurting so bad,” Black said after he was given the lethal injection.
His lawyer said that the courts should have stepped in to halt the state from putting Black to death.
“Today, the State of Tennessee killed a gentle, kind, fragile, intellectually disabled man in violation of the laws of our country simply because they could. No one in a position of power, certainly not the courts, was willing to stop them,” said Kelley Henry, who served as Black’s attorney for 25 years.
“If you think that what happened is just about one man, you are wrong. We are witnessing the erosion of the rule of law and every principle of human decency on which this country was founded. Today, it is Byron. Tomorrow, it will be someone you care about,” she said.
Black’s legal team had argued that the chest defibrillator should be turned off ahead of the execution and that to not do so will result in a “grotesque spectacle.”
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee disputed that, saying courts have “universally determined that it is lawful to carry out the jury’s sentence of death on Black for the heinous murders of Angela Clay and her daughters Lakeisha, age 6, and Latoya, age 9.”
Black’s execution was the second one in the state since May. Tennessee had paused its executions for five years due to state correction officials’ issues and also COVID-19.
His lawyers also unsuccessfully argued that he had brain damage and dementia in his old age and was too incompetent to be put to death.
A trial court initially agreed with his lawyers on the defibrillator issue, saying it should be turned off, but the state’s highest court overturned that ruling.
Black has been on death row since 1989. He was convicted the year before for killing his 29-year-old girlfriend Angela Clay and her two daughters Latoya and Lakeisha, aged 9 and 6. He was on work release at the time after having shot his girlfriend’s estranged husband.
Linette Bell, whose sister and two nieces were killed, told WKRN-TV that Black “didn’t have mercy on them, so why should we have mercy on him?”
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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