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Tennessee Executes Child Killer:  For the first time since 2009, Tennessee executed a condemned murderer Thursday amid claims that the three-drug execution cocktail amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.  CBS News reports that Billy Ray Irick's execution took 14 minutes, after he coughed, took deep breaths and turned dark purple.  About 50 protesters were outside the prison during the execution.  Irick was sentenced to death for the 1985 rape and murder of a 7-year-old girl he was babysitting.  His attorneys attempted to stop the execution with claims that the use of the sedative midazolam would allow pain.  In her dissent from the SCOTUS denial of a stay, Associate Justice Sonya Sotomayor asserted the Tennessee protocol could cause "torturous pain."  I suspect that the little girl that Irick raped and killed probably suffered more pain.  Gotta love how Yahoo News covers this  execution...leading with the headline from a British newspaper (The Independent) which reads, "Tennessee executes child killer Billy Ray Irick with drug that inflicts `torturous pain.' " How does reporter Toyin Owoseje know that this is true?  She doesn't...but  she takes Justice Sotomoyer view about the possibility and Irick's attorney's arguendo and makes it an absolute.  That is fake news.   


3 Comments

Barbaric and uncivilized? Come on Sonya.
Those words only describe the horrible death that the Dyer girl endured while Irick inflicted torture on her.

Sotomayor's opinion is a laughable read. First of all, her reference to a "hurried posture" is a sick and cruel joke on the little girl's family. This case has taken years. With respect to the fact that only months have elapsed since the latest iteration of Tennessee's protocol, months is an eternity compared to the strategically timed last-minute filings for stays of execution.

This, in my view, is emblematic of our silly legal culture. Sotomayor is comfortable writing sophistry like that because neither the academy nor her fellow judges will call her out. Sotomayor doesn't care a whit about "hurried posture" when there is "a life at stake" (more sophistry). Thus, her little dissent shows a double-standardism that is inconsistent with how judges should operate.

It is a sad commentary on the state of our politics that this lesser talent was given the power of a federal judge, let alone a Supreme Court Justice.

"the Knoxville school girl he had raped and killed while babysitting..."

"Hours before his execution, the 59-year-old's lawyer made a final attempt to save Irick's life, arguing that he had suffered from psychosis for the majority of his
life and was mentally ill at the time of the offence.

--> Does anyone -- other than a defense attorney -- think that this rapist's "psychosis" exculpates him from criminal responsibility?

--> Does anyone -- other than a defense attorney -- think that this murderer's "mental illness" makes him exempt from the approved punishment?

Gene Shiles told members of the media: "I never thought for one moment it would come to this. I never did. I thought somebody would actually look at the facts.
I was wrong
.”

Actually, some did look at these intellectually impoverished posits and found them severely deficient.

The victimizer is the true victim to a demented apologist, hopefully found only in the community of defense attorneys and those of Robert Durham's ilk.

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