Tennessee inmate's heart device must be turned off before execution to avoid shock risk, judge rules

Turning off inmate’s heart device to avoid shock risk at execution would cause chaos, Tennessee attorneys say

A judge’s order to take a Tennessee death row inmate to the hospital on the morning of his execution so doctors can deactivate his heart-regulating implant would cause “chaos,” state attorneys said in an appeal. The argument was one of several in a filing Wednesday that seeks to overturn an order to deactivate Byron Black’s…

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Tennessee inmate's heart device must be turned off before execution to avoid shock risk, judge rules

Tennessee inmate’s heart device must be turned off before execution to avoid shock risk, judge rules

Tennessee officials must deactivate a death-row inmate’s implanted heart-regulating device to avert the risk that it might try to shock him during his lethal injection, a judge ruled Friday. The order by Nashville Chancellor Russell Perkins comes ahead of the Aug. 5 execution of Byron Black. Black’s attorneys have said that the implantable cardioverter-defibrillator could…

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Mississippi executes Richard Jordan, state's longest-serving death row inmate, for 1976 murder

Mississippi executes Richard Jordan, state’s longest-serving death row inmate, for 1976 murder

The longest-serving man on Mississippi’s death row was executed Wednesday, nearly five decades after he kidnapped and killed a bank loan officer’s wife in a violent ransom scheme. Richard Gerald Jordan, a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder whose final appeals were denied without comment by the U.S. Supreme Court, was sentenced to death…

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Gulf War veteran, convicted of 1998 shotgun killings of girlfriend and her 3 young children, executed in Florida

Gulf War veteran, convicted of 1998 shotgun killings of girlfriend and her 3 young children, executed in Florida

An Army combat veteran whose Gulf War experience triggered severe mental problems was executed Thursday evening in Florida for the 1998 shotgun slayings of his girlfriend and her three young children. Jeffrey Hutchinson, 62, was pronounced dead at 8:15 p.m. following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was the fourth person…

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Idaho must allow execution witnesses to watch as lethal drugs are prepared and given, judge rules

Idaho must allow execution witnesses to watch as lethal drugs are prepared and given, judge rules

Idaho prison officials must let media witnesses at executions watch as lethal injection drugs are prepared and administered to a condemned person, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Debora K. Grasham ordered the Idaho Department of Correction to provide the audio and visual access for any executions that occur while a First…

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