Took way too long to get around to this.
View attachment 6931459
View attachment 6931460
Toyin Owoseje -
The Independent•August 10, 2018
Tennessee has carried out its first
execution in nearly a decade using a controversial cocktail of drugs including a lethal ingredient described by the Supreme Court as "chemically burning at the stake".
Billy Ray Irick, an inmate convicted of the 1985 rape and murder of seven-year-old Paula Dyer, received a three-drug injection on Thursday night after the US Supreme Court denied a final request to stay his execution.
The lethal injection consisted of midazolam, used as sedative during an execution, a muscle-relaxer called vecuronium bromide, and compounded potassium chloride, the agent that stops the heart.
Thursday’s execution came amid a pending legal challenge against the state’s lethal injection. In recent years, experts and lawyers for
death row offenders have raised questions about Midazolam's effectiveness as a sedative in executions.
Witness accounts also raised questions about whether the inmates were sufficiently anaesthetised when the lethal substances were administered, and suggested they may not be not chemically appropriate.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said: "Although the Midazolam may temporarily render Irick unconscious, the onset of pain and suffocation will rouse him. And it may do so just as the paralysis sets in, too late for him to alert bystanders that his execution has gone horribly (if predictably) wrong.
"In refusing to grant Irick a stay, the Court today turns a blind eye to a proven likelihood that the State of Tennessee is on the verge of inflicting several minutes of torturous pain on an inmate in its custody," Ms Sotomayor wrote. "If the law permits this execution to go forward in spite of the horrific final minutes that Irick may well experience, then we have stopped being a civilised nation and accepted barbarism."
The US Supreme Court has described potassium chloride as "chemically burning at the stake".
Irick's execution started at 7.26pm. At 7.34pm, he was coughing, huffing and taking deep breaths. He then let out a cough or choking sound and his face turned dark purple. He was pronounced dead at 7.48pm.