Tennessee Is About to Execute Byron Black — Despite His Intellectual Disability
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Tennessee Executes Man Despite Heart Device Concerns
Above: Tennessee Supreme Court. Image copyright: Wikimedia Commons
The Spin
Right narrative
Justice has been served. Black didn't show his victims any mercy, so he was undeserving of mercy regardless of what his lawyers claimed about him. The courts repeatedly upheld his conviction for the heinous murders and his death sentence. It was determined that he was competent to face execution, so there was no reason to stop it.
Left narrative
This execution was cruel and inhumane because Black was a severely disabled man who had a defibrillator that was still on. His intellectual disability made him ineligible for the death penalty under SCOTUS precedent. It's a sad state of affairs that the state still went ahead with this grotesque spectacle.