Tennessee Executes Notorious Pedophile After Supreme Court Ruling

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A notorious pedophile who raped and murdered a 7-year-old girl was executed by the state of Tennessee on Thursday.

A notorious pedophile who raped and murdered a 7-year-old girl was executed by the state of Tennessee on Thursday.

Inmate Billy Ray Irick, 59, received a three-drug injection at a maximum-security prison in Nashville, Tennessee and was pronounced dead at 7:48 p.m., authorities said. He was convicted in 1986 in the death of Paula Dyer, a Knoxville child he was babysitting.

The execution was Tennessee’s first in ten years and came after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the death penalty, denying the convicted child killer’s request for a stay.

The State reports: The blinds between a witness room and the execution chamber were opened at 7:26 p.m. and Irick could be seen through glass windows strapped to a gurney, an IV stuck in his arm and leading back through the wall to a room hidden by a mirror-window, where someone administered the drugs. Asked if he had any words before the chemicals began flowing, Irick at first appeared to sigh and say “no.” But then he said, “I just want to say I’m really sorry and that, that’s it.

Then the execution proceeded. A minute later, his eyes closed. Snoring and heavy breathing were heard. At 7:34 p.m., there was coughing, huffing and deep breaths. An attendant began yelling “Billy” and checked the inmate and grabbed his shoulder, but there didn’t seem to be any reaction. Minutes later, Irick let out a cough or choking sound, as his face turned dark purple. Then he appeared to stop making noise and was soon after pronounced dead.

 

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In this Aug. 16, 2010 file photo, Billy Ray Irick, on death row for raping and killing a 7-year-old girl in 1985, appears in a Knox County criminal courtroom in Knoxville, Tenn., arguing that he’s too mentally ill to be executed by the state.

Hours earlier Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution, denying Irick’s request for a stay. But Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a blistering dissent, recounting details from a recent state court trial of a case brought by inmates contesting Tennessee’s execution drugs.

Irick’s attorney, Gene Shiles, said his client was stoic in his last hours and accepted what would happen with “a lot of grace.” Irick ordered up a burger, onion rings and a soft drink for his last meal, and spoke with chaplains, Shiles said.

It was the first execution in Tennessee since December 2009, when inmate Cecil Johnson received a lethal injection for the 1980 killings of three people during a Nashville convenience store robbery. Since then, the state has endured legal challenges and difficulties finding execution chemicals, including its previous drug, pentobarbital.

On Monday, the state Supreme Court also had refused to block Irick’s execution, saying the lawsuit filed by inmates involving the execution drugs wasn’t likely to succeed. That case is continuing in a state appeals court.

In a ruling late last month, Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle wrote that attorneys for 33 death row inmates, including Irick, didn’t prove that there is a substantially less painful means to carry out an execution or that the drugs the state planned on using would cause the inmate to be tortured to death.

Tennessee’s execution protocol called for use of midazolam as a sedative, the muscle-relaxer vecuronium bromide and then potassium chloride to stop the heart.

At question is whether midazolam is actually effective in rendering someone unconscious and unable to feel pain from the other two drugs. Federal public defender Kelley Henry said at trial that inmates were tortured to death, feeling like they were suffocating, drowning, and utterly confused.

Henry said in a statement Thursday night that witness observations suggest the midazolam didn’t render Irick fully unconscious, and those accounts were “indicative of pulmonary edema” from the drug.

Attorneys for the state have said the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the use of midazolam in a three-drug series. Once Irick was dead, Attorney General Herbert Slatery said justice was delayed too long for the little girl killed and her family.

A small group of the victim’s family members watched in a separate viewing room. They opted against speaking at a news conference afterward.

I hope tonight’s lawful execution in some way eases the heartache Paula’s family has lived with and brings a degree of closure to a chapter of their lives that has been indescribably difficult,” Slatery said in the statement.

Baxter Dmitry

Baxter Dmitry

Baxter Dmitry is a writer at The People's Voice. He covers politics, business and entertainment. Speaking truth to power since he learned to talk, Baxter has travelled in over 80 countries and won arguments in every single one. Live without fear.
Email: baxter@thepeoplesvoice.tv
Baxter Dmitry

2 Comments

    • Not even a joke. Keeping pedophiles and murders and mentally ill people alive is a modern libtard religious belief. It makes no ethical sense to keep these sick people alive and have other people pay for it.

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