Appeals court affirms ruling giving OK to state's execution procedures

Knoxville News Sentinel ^ | 4/16/12 | Jamie Satterfield

[SmithL]

An appellate court is paving the way for executions of death row inmates, including two from East Tennessee.

The Tennessee Court of Appeals last week issued an opinion affirming the decision of Davidson County Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman to uphold a new procedure set by the state Department of Correction to try to ensure a death row inmate is unconscious before fatal drugs are administered under the state's three-drug lethal injection process.

"Plaintiffs have simply failed to carry their heavy burden to demonstrate that the lethal injection protocol as revised in November 2010 constitutes wanton exposure to an objectively intolerable risk of severe and unnecessary pain and suffering," the appellate court ruled.

The ruling paves the way for the executions of four death row inmates, two of whom hail from East Tennessee. Stephen Michael West is set to be executed for the 1986 killings of Wanda Romines and her daughter, Sheila Romines, in their Union County home. Billy Ray Irick also has been sentenced to die for the 1985 rape and strangulation of 7-year-old Paula Dyer for whom he was baby-sitting in her Knox County home.

[Tenacious 1]

It’s cruel and unusual punishment, not pain.

Let’s go back to public hanging and firing squads. That seemed to do the trick just fine.