U.S. Supreme Court will not stop Irick's execution; Sotomayor says we have 'accepted barbarism'

Dave Boucher | The Tennessean

Show Caption Hide Caption Witnesses describe execution of Billy Ray Irick Seven members of the media witnessed the execution of Billy Ray Irick.

The U.S. Supreme Court will not intervene in convicted killer Billy Ray Irick's execution, set to take place Thursday at 7 p.m.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan denied a request to delay Irick's execution. However, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor disagreed with her colleague's decision.

"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, while shrouding his suffering behind a veneer of paralysis," Sotomayor wrote in her dissent.

"I cannot in good conscience join in this 'rush to execute' without first seeking every assurance that our precedent permits such results...if the law permits this execution to go forward in spite of the horrific final minutes that Irick may well experience, then we stopped being a civilized nation and accepted barbarism."

The high court's decision not to stop the lethal injection likely means Irick is truly out of ways to prevent his death by the state.

Remembering the murder of 7-year-old Paula Dyer Billy Ray Irick was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of Paula Dyer in 1986. Decades of appeals later, he's still on death Paula's family still can't rest.

Irick, 59, was convicted in 1986 of raping and murdering Paula Dyer, a 7-year-old girl in Knox County. Advocates have long noted he has a history of severe mental illness, including delusions and paranoia at the time of his crimes.

"If the law permits this execution to go forward in spite of the horrific final minutes that Irick may well experience, then we stopped being a civilized nation and accepted barbarism." - Justice Sonya Sotomayor

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A Davidson County court, the Tennessee Supreme Court and a federal court in Nashville all rejected different legal pleas aimed at delaying or preventing Irick's execution.

After a two-week trial in July, Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle ruled against Irick and 32 other inmates who were challenging the constitutionality of Tennessee's lethal injection method.

Lyle did not dispute expert witness testimony that some of the drugs -- including the first drug, midazolam, which is supposed to render an inmate unconscious and unable to feel pain -- may not work as intended, leading to significant pain. However, she questioned whether that pain would arise to torture, therefore violating the constitution.

Lyle pointed to the time span of executions cited by the inmates' attorneys, which lasted an average of 13.55 minutes but could go 18 minutes or longer.

In her dissent, Sotomayor notes the expert testimony that held Irick may feel "sensations of suffocation and of burning that 'may well be the chemical equivalent of being burned at the stake'."

She also blasted Lyle's correlation between a length of time feeling pain and torture.

"As to the prediction that this Court would deem up to 18 minutes of needless torture anything less than cruel, unusual and unconstitutional, I fervently hope the state courts were mistaken," Sotomayor writes.

In filings before the Supreme Court, Irick's attorneys also said the court must decide if those who suffer from severe mental illness should be spared from execution.

The court already determined juveniles and people with developmental disabilities may not be executed. But the justices declined to weigh in, at least for the time being, on the question of culpability for severely mental ill death row offenders.

If executed, Irick will be the 133 person put to death by the state since 1916. It will be the first execution in Tennessee since 2009.

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This is a developing story. Follow Tennessean.com for more information as it becomes available.

Reach Dave Boucher at 615-259-8892, dboucher@tennessean.com and on Twitter @Dave_Boucher1.