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Thread: Byron Lewis Black - Tennessee Death Row

  1. #41
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Family who lost loved ones to death row inmate react to execution decision

    By Courtney Allen
    WSMV4

    29-year-old Angela Clay and her two young daughters were killed in 1987. The little girls were 6 and 9 years old.

    Linette Bell is Angela’s sister and she will never forget what happened.

    “We feel that we have not gotten any type of justice for three decades. It is three decades too long.”

    Byron Black was convicted in the triple slaying. Linette says Black was scheduled to be executed this coming august, after years of delays.

    “I was just at the graveyard last week, sitting out there talking to my sister,” Linette said. “We almost there my girl. We almost there, sis. We got you. I am not giving up. Hmm. A week later. Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring.”

    Linette got the call yesterday from the Attorney General’s office that all executions are being paused for the rest of the year.

    “My momma right here is 85 years old,” Linette points out. “She needs to see her justice before she leaves this world, and so does the whole entire family.”

    This comes after another death row inmate, Oscar Smith, received a temporary reprieve from his execution a little more than a week ago, due to an oversight in preparation for lethal injection.

    Governor Bill Lee announced plans on Monday to launch a third-party review of the process and is pausing the rest of scheduled executions this year for the review.

    “The death penalty is an incredibly important issue and very important to me we make certain every process is being followed,” Governor Lee explained after a bill signing in Franklin on Monday afternoon.

    Angela’s husband and father of the two girls, Bennie Clay, is also devastated.

    Bennie was also shot by Byron Black on that day in 1987. Investigators removed the bullet from Bennie’s shoulder to compare it to bullets later used in his wife and daughters’ killings.

    Bennie still has the scars.

    “It is killing us slowly by slowly,” he admitted. “Taking a little bit of our life, keep going on and on, off and off, that ain’t good.”

    Linette feels like the state does not care about her family.

    “To me, they made me feel like it’s been three decades ago, they should have forgot about that by now,” Linette said. “That is something we won’t forget until they throw dirt in our face.”

    The governor said victims are very important to him, and his office is in contact with the families impacted.

    Linette said they have not heard from the governor, or anyone else from his office.

    https://www.wsmv.com/2022/05/03/fami...tion-decision/
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  2. #42
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Nashville DA seeks death sentence commutation, AG against

    By TRAVIS LOLLER
    The Associated Press

    Tennessee’s conservative attorney general and Nashville’s liberal district attorney are at odds over whether a death row inmate is intellectually disabled and consequently should not be executed.

    The case involves Byron Black, a 66-year-old inmate convicted in the 1988 shooting deaths of girlfriend Angela Clay, 29, and her two daughters, Latoya, 9, and Lakeisha, 6. Prosecutors said Black was in a jealous rage when he shot the three at their home. At the time, Black was on work release while serving time for shooting and wounding Clay’s estranged husband.

    Black previously sought to prove he was intellectually disabled in 2004, but that claim was rejected at the state and federal court level. Since then, other cases in both state and federal court have led to more finely tuned criteria for determining intellectual disability.

    Tennessee enacted a new law last year stating clearly that no defendant with an intellectual disability at the time of their crime can be executed. The law is retroactive, but with a catch. A defendant cannot file a new disability claim “if the issue of whether the defendant has an intellectual disability has been previously adjudicated on the merits.”

    Nonetheless, Black filed a motion shortly after the new law took effect, asking the court to declare that he is intellectually disabled. He has argued that the prohibition on filing a new claim should not apply to him because the law itself, including how intellectual disability is defined, has changed. The “issue” is different because the legal standard is different, his attorneys argue.

    Davidson County District Attorney General Glenn Funk agreed, and in court filings said he accepted new findings by expert witnesses who previously testified for the state that Black is intellectually disabled. However, a judge dismissed Black’s motion in March, ruling that Black does not have a right to relitigate the issue of his intellectual disability.

    On Tuesday, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals will hear oral arguments in the appeal. This time, the state will be represented not by Funk, but by the state attorney general’s office, which takes the opposite view from Funk. In filings prior to the hearing, Senior Assistant Attorney General Katharine Decker, argued that Black should not get “another bite at the apple.”

    The conflict mirrors one in 2019 when a Nashville judge approved an agreement between Funk and defense attorneys to resentence death row inmate Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman to life in prison after finding his trial had been tainted by racism during jury selection. The state attorney general’s office appealed that ruling, leading Abdur’Rahman’s attorney complain that the state should not be able to appeal an agreement by the state. The agreement was struck down for procedural reasons, but Abdur’Rahman was resentenced again in 2021.

    Black had been scheduled to be executed in August, but in May, Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee paused all executions through the remainder of the year after he called off a separate execution in April due to what he called an “oversight” in preparations for the lethal injection. Lee has appointed former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton to review circumstances that led to the failure, which the state has said included a lack of required testing for endotoxins in the drugs.

    https://fox17.com/newsletter-daily/n...ion-ag-against
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  3. #43
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    How about no?
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

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  4. #44
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    Black’s ID claim has been denied by the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals.

    https://law.justia.com/cases/tenness...cca-r3-pd.html
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

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