Tennessee Executes Inmate After Legal Challenges Over Heart Device

Attorneys argued for over three decades that Byron Black was mentally disabled and should be spared. They then urged that his pacemaker be turned off.

Alabama's lethal injection chamber at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Ala., on Oct. 7, 2002. Dave Martin/AP Photo

Tennessee executed Byron Black early Aug. 5 after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal to stay his execution, or to force the state to turn off his internal pacemaker-defibrillator.

Black, 69, who was convicted for the 1988 murder of his married girlfriend Angela Clay and her two young daughters, had sued to halt his execution on the grounds that the device might activate during his lethal injection and administer painful shocks to his heart.