NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — 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.
Asked for any last words, he replied, “No sir.”
Black looked around the room as the execution started, lifting his head off the gurney multiple times, and could be heard sighing and breathing heavily. All seven media witnesses to the execution agreed he appeared to be in discomfort. Throughout the execution, a spiritual advisor prayed and sang over Black, at one point touching his face.
“Oh, it's hurting so bad," Black said, as he lay with his hands and chest restrained to the gurney, a sheet covering up past his lower half, and an IV line in his arm.
“I'm so sorry. Just listen to my voice,” the advisor responded.
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 with 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 face 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 Tennessee's Supreme Court overturned that decision Thursday, 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. The lethal injection protocol is still being challenged in court.
She said she was especially concerned about his head movement and complaints of pain because the massive dose of pentobarbital used to kill inmates is supposed to rapidly leave them unconscious.
“The fact that he was able to raise his head several times and express pain tells you that the pentobarbital was not acting the way the state's experts claim it acts,” Henry said.
Prison officials did not comment on witnesses and Black’s attorney saying he appeared conscious or his complaints of pain.
It was Tennessee’s second execution since May, after a pause for five years, first because of COVID-19 and then because of missteps by state corrections officials.
Twenty-eight men have died by court-ordered execution so far this year in the U.S., and nine other people are scheduled to be put to death in seven states during the remainder of 2025. The number of executions this year exceeds the 25 carried out last year and in 2018. It is the highest total since 2015, when 28 people were put to death.
Black's condition
Black had an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, which is a small, battery-powered electronic device that is surgically implanted in the chest. It served as a pacemaker and an emergency defibrillator. Black’s attorneys have said a doctor can send it a deactivation command without surgery.
The legal case also spurred a reminder that most medical professionals consider participation in executions a violation of health care ethics.
Intellectual disability claim
In recent years, Black's legal team has unsuccessfully tried to get a new hearing about an intellectual disability they say he's exhibited since childhood. People with intellectually disabilities are constitutionally barred from execution.
His attorneys have said that if they had delayed a prior attempt to seek his intellectual disability claim, he would have been spared under a 2021 state law. That is because the 2021 law denies a hearing to people on death row who have already filed a similar request and a court has ruled on it “on the merits."
A judge denied Nashville District Attorney Glenn Funk's attempt to get Black a new hearing. Funk focused on input from an expert for the state in 2004 who determined back then that Black didn’t meet the criteria for what was then called "mental retardation.” But she concluded that Black met the new law’s criteria for a diagnosis of intellectual disability.
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Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this story.
Jonathan Mattise, The Associated Press
