Unless Governor Lee Intervenes, Tennessee Will Execute Byron Black, A Man with Intellectual Disability, and Risk a Torturous Execution Due to His Heart Defibrillator

• Update August 5, 2024: All (mul­ti­ple) media wit­ness­es who observed the exe­cu­tion report that Mr. Black was observed repeat­ed­ly lift­ing his head, ​“sigh­ing” and ​“groan­ing” dur­ing his exe­cu­tion, at one point say­ing ​“It’s hurt­ing so bad.” He demon­strat­ed ​“clear, audi­ble signs of dis­tress” for sev­er­al min­utes. ​“It was unan­i­mous among all of us that he was in dis­tress.” He was declared dead at 10:43 CT. 

  On July 31, 2025, the Tennessee Supreme Court vacat­ed a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion issued by the Davidson County Chancery Court that required the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC) to deac­ti­vate Byron Black’s implant­ed heart device (car­diac implantable elec­tron­ic device, or CIED) before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion on August 5, 2025. The court did not rule on the mer­its of Mr. Black’s claims that the CIED will pro­long his exe­cu­tion and risk caus­ing him addi­tion­al pain and suf­fer­ing. Instead, the court not­ed ​“noth­ing in our deci­sion today pre­vents the par­ties from reach­ing an agree­ment regard­ing deac­ti­va­tion of Mr. Black’s ICD, should it become fea­si­ble for the pro­ce­dure to be per­formed at an appropriate time.” 

Earlier in the month, Chancellor Russell T. Perkins issued the pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion, agree­ing with Mr. Black’s coun­sel that he faces the ​“risk of irrepara­ble harm if his CIED device is not deac­ti­vat­ed.” Tennessee offi­cials appealed Chancellor Perkins’ rul­ing, assert­ing that Mr. Black will not suf­fer because he will be uncon­scious, and indi­cat­ing that they are unable to locate med­ical pro­fes­sion­als will­ing to deac­ti­vate the device. Previously, TDOC indi­cat­ed that med­ical pro­fes­sion­als from Nashville General Hospital would deac­ti­vate Mr. Black’s CIED ahead of his exe­cu­tion; how­ev­er, hos­pi­tal spokes­woman Cathy Poole lat­er said the state’s ​“request is well out­side of [the hospital’s agree­ment with the state] and would require coop­er­a­tion with sev­er­al enti­ties, all of which have indi­cat­ed they are unwill­ing to par­tic­i­pate.” The American Code of Medical Ethics for­bids doc­tors and physi­cians from par­tic­i­pat­ing in exe­cu­tions, as they are ​“member[s] of a pro­fes­sion ded­i­cat­ed to preserving life.” 

Shortly after the Tennessee Supreme Court vacat­ed the injunc­tion, attor­neys for Mr. Black filed requests for a stay of exe­cu­tion with the U.S. Supreme Court, iden­ti­fy­ing numer­ous grounds. Among the argu­ments was the fact that the only court that heard evi­dence of this issue con­clud­ed there is a sub­stan­tial risk of a ​“pro­longed” and ​“tor­tur­ous” death for Mr. Black if the CIED is not first deac­ti­vat­ed. The Supreme Court denied all Mr. Black’s stay appli­ca­tions on August 4, 2025, without comment. 

Mr. Black has also filed a clemen­cy appli­ca­tion, ask­ing Governor Bill Lee to com­mute his death sen­tence to life impris­on­ment with­out parole. Governor Lee would have sol­id fac­tu­al and legal grounds upon which to base a com­mu­ta­tion. Every expert that has met and exam­ined Mr. Black has agreed he is a per­son with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, and thus, inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty under the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court rul­ing in Atkins v. Virginia. In 2022, the Davidson County District Attorney agreed that Mr. Black has intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, but the courts have refused to con­sid­er that state’s find­ing because of a legal pro­ce­dur­al bar­ri­er. In 2021, Tennessee law­mak­ers passed leg­is­la­tion pro­vid­ing death row pris­on­ers with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to have a hear­ing to con­sid­er claims of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. Mr. Black sought a hear­ing under this new leg­is­la­tion and at that time, the state’s expert con­clud­ed Mr. Black is a per­son with intellectual disability. 

Even with the expert’s new con­clu­sion, the court refused to allow a hear­ing for Mr. Black, rea­son­ing that he already had a hear­ing regard­ing his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claim two decades ear­li­er, fol­low­ing the rul­ing in Atkins. Kelley Henry, attor­ney for Mr. Black, has not­ed that only because of her client’s dili­gence more than 20 years ago, he now exists in a ​“con­sti­tu­tion­al catch-22.” Mr. Black ​“did every­thing right. And because he did, he stands to be exe­cut­ed because the courts can­not find a home for his claim,” wrote Ms. Henry in the clemen­cy peti­tion. Since the rul­ing in Atkins, more than 140 peo­ple across the U.S. have been removed from death row and resentenced.

According to the clemen­cy peti­tion, ​“If the exe­cu­tion is allowed to move for­ward, Byron Black would be the first intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled per­son exe­cut­ed by Tennessee in the mod­ern era of the death penal­ty.” The peti­tion notes that Mr. Black is the only per­son on Tennessee’s death row who has been denied the ben­e­fits of the 2021 leg­is­la­tion sim­ply because he dili­gent­ly pur­sued dis­abil­i­ty claims ear­li­er, based on now out­dat­ed and invalid med­ical and scientific conclusions. 

Mr. Black was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1989 for the 1988 shoot­ing death of his then-girl­friend and her two young chil­dren. At age 69, Mr. Black is now wheel­chair bound and suf­fers from numer­ous health con­di­tions, includ­ing demen­tia and con­ges­tive heart failure.