‘Troubling’ Tennessee Execution Follows Sotomayor Dissent (1)

Billy Ray Irick’s “troubling” execution in Tennessee may have underscored some of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s concerns about lethal injection cocktails she raised just hours before he succumbed to one.

Reports claim Irick closed his eyes and snored after the drugs were administered Aug. 9 at Riverbend prison in Nashville, but then there was “coughing, huffing and deep breaths” before his face turned purple. The state department of correction pronounced him dead at 7:48 p.m.

Kelley Henry, one of Irick’s lawyers, criticized the execution in a way that mirrored Sotomayor’s solo dissent from the court’s rejection of Irick’s ...