The State of Tennessee executed Byron Black yesterday, a 69-year-old man who had a documented intellectual disability, end-stage kidney disease, congestive heart failure, and cardiomyopathy that required a pacemaker.
His lawyer, public defender Kelley Henry, had tried to get a court order to, at a minimum, force the Tennessee Department of Corrections to deactivate his pacemaker before they killed him to prevent the device from being triggered when they injected him with pentobarbital. Otherwise, she told the court, the execution “will deliver shocks that will restart his heart during the execution and thereby inflict pain and suffering amounting to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.” The court denied her request, and Byron Black endured a torturous death at the hands of the state.
In a statement that Henry issued after witnessing the execution, she stated that, “What happened here was the result of pure, unbridled bloodlust and cowardice. It was the brutal and unchecked abuse of government power. It was the result of a failed criminal legal system that countenanced, even rewarded, attorneys who told half-truths and untruths.
“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.
“And 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.”
You can read Henry’s statement in its entirety here. It is a perfect summation of everything that is wrong with state killing, beautifully written, and emotionally devastating.
(Home page photo of Byron Black courtesy of Tennessee Department of Corrections.)