Tennessee executes inmate by lethal injection without deactivating his implanted defibrillator

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee executed an inmate Tuesday without deactivating his implanted defibrillator, despite uncertainty about whether the device would shock his heart when the lethal chemicals took effect.

Byron Black died at 10:43 a.m., prison officials said. Shortly after the lethal injection started, witnesses said Black told a spiritual adviser in the room that he was hurting so badly.

Black looked around the room as the execution started and could be heard sighing and breathing heavily.

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 in which an inmate was making similar claims to Black’s about ICDs or pacemakers. Black’s attorneys said they haven’t found a comparable case, either.

In mid-July, a trial court judge agreed with Black’s attorneys that officials must have the device deactivated to avert the risk that it could cause unnecessary pain and prolong the execution. But the state Supreme Court intervened Thursday to overturn that decision, 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.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Black’s final appeal, and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee declined to stop the execution.

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.

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 eight 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 stated that to ensure it’s off, a doctor must place a programming device over the implant site, sending it a deactivation command, with no surgery required.

Black's attorneys have countered that even if the lethal drug being used, pentobarbital, renders someone unresponsive, they aren't necessarily unaware or unable to feel pain.

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 over whether he is intellectually disabled and ineligible for the death penalty under U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

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.

Nashville District Attorney Glenn Funk contended in 2022 that Black is intellectually disabled and deserved a hearing under that 2021 law, but the judge denied it. 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.”

In Funk's attempt, he 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.

Black also sought a determination by the courts that he was incompetent to be executed.