FILE-Image of a death chamber at a correction facility. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Newsmakers/Getty Images)
A Tennessee death row inmate who had a working defibrillator in his chest was executed by lethal injection.
Byron Black died at 10:43 a.m. on Tuesday, prison officials told the Associated Press. Shortly after the lethal injection started, witnesses said Black told a spiritual advisor in the room that he was hurting so badly.
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According to the AP, Black looked around the room as the execution began and could be heard sighing and breathing heavily.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Black’s final appeal, and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee declined to stop his execution.
The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled on July 31 that Byron Black could be executed without deactivating his implanted defibrillator, with the high court noting that requiring that the device be deactivated "amounted to a stay of execution, which is not within the lower court’s power," according to the Associated Press.
Byron Black's attorneys push for defibrillator to be deactivated before execution
Dig deeper:
According to the Associated Press, the issue with Byron Black’s execution centers on how his heart device will perform when the state attempts to execute him with a lethal injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital.
Lawyers for Byron Black on July 3 launched a last-minute effort to prevent his execution, asking a judge to require the Tennessee Department of Correction to deactivate an implanted defibrillation device like a pacemaker in the moments before Black’s execution.
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The other side:
The AP reported that Davidson County Chancery Court Judge Russell Perkins previously determined that the implanted cardioverter-defibrillator is likely to continuously shock Black’s heart, causing unnecessary pain and prolonging the execution.
Perkins ordered the state to deactivate the device before Black’s execution. But the AP reported that the order kept in mind the possibility that Black could win a last-minute reprieve. Deactivating it too far in advance might mean Black could die just before a ruling that would have saved him.
Lawyers for the Tennessee Attorney General’s office initially told the AP that they would have to transport Black to Nashville General Hospital for the deactivation of the device because the doctors there did not want to enter the execution chamber.
But on July 30, the state later admitted that the hospital was unwilling to participate in the procedure. The AP noted that most medical professionals consider any involvement in executions to be a violation of medical ethics.
Who was Byron Black?
The backstory:
Byron 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 told the Associated Press that Black was in a jealous rage when he shot the three at their home. During that time, Black was on work-release while serving time for shooting Clay’s estranged husband.
In a statement from Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti obtained by the Associated Press, Skrmetti said state courts have rebuffed attempts to overturn Black’s murder convictions and death sentence and have also denied efforts to find him intellectually disabled and ineligible for the death penalty.
The Source: Information for this story was provided by the Associated Press, which offers background information on Byron Black’s case and the Tennessee Supreme Court ruling. This story was reported from Washington, D.C.