A 69-year-old Tennessee inmate was executed by lethal injection on Tuesday morning, despite warnings from medical professionals and advocates that his heart device could deliver painful shocks during the procedure.
Byron Black, convicted in the 1988 murders of his girlfriend Angela Clay and her two daughters, aged 6 and 9, was pronounced dead at 10:43 a.m. local time at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, according to the Associated Press. He did not make a final statement.
Witnesses said Black appeared to be in visible pain during the execution. He reportedly groaned, gasped, and at one point cried out, “It’s hurting so bad,” per the outlet.
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In the weeks leading up to his death, Black’s attorneys urged officials to deactivate his implantable cardioverter defibrillator—a device designed to shock the heart when it detects irregular rhythms—according to The Washington Post. They warned that it could counteract the lethal injection drugs and cause repeated, excruciating shocks during the execution.
“I interpret that my client was tortured today,” said Black’s attorney, Kelley Henry, in an interview with NBC News.
A lower court had agreed with the defense and ordered the device to be turned off, according to the Associated Press. However, the Tennessee Supreme Court later reversed that decision, stating the judge lacked the authority to make the call.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported that Nashville General Hospital—where the device had been implanted—refused to deactivate it, citing ethical concerns and a lack of consent.
Black’s legal team had also sought clemency, pointing to his medical conditions, which included intellectual disability, heart and kidney failure, and progressive dementia, per the AP. He was confined to a wheelchair at the time of his death and had spent over 30 years on death row.
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His final appeals were denied by the U.S. Supreme Court and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, according to the outlet.
Following the execution, Black’s attorneys announced they would request a full autopsy and access to the device’s internal data to determine whether it had activated during the process, as reported by the AP.
Black is the second person executed in Tennessee this year, after the state resumed executions following a pause linked to issues with its lethal injection protocol. Legal analysts and advocates told The Washington Post that Black’s case may mark the first known instance of a U.S. execution being carried out while a defibrillator remained active.
