Tennessee Executes Inmate With Active Heart Defibrillator Amid Legal Dispute

Tennessee is set to execute Byron Black, a 69-year-old inmate suffering from multiple severe health issues and equipped with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), without deactivating the device despite legal challenges. Black's attorneys argue that the lethal injection drugs will trigger the ICD to repeatedly shock his heart, causing prolonged and painful execution in violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that the execution could proceed without deactivating the ICD, overturning a lower court’s order to do so, and the state maintains that Black would be unconscious and unable to feel pain if shocks occur. Black’s case highlights ethical and practical dilemmas where medical technology intersects with capital punishment, compounded by the refusal of medical professionals to participate in deactivating the device. His attorneys have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution, which would be Tennessee's second this year after a five-year pause. Black has been on death row for over 30 years, convicted for murders in 1988, and currently faces execution amid ongoing concerns about his intellectual disability and physical condition.