US hospital says it has not agreed to deactivate prisoner’s heart device before execution

A Tennessee hospital says it never agreed to a request by state officials who face a court order to turn off a death-row inmate’s heart-regulating implant before his execution next week.

After a Nashville judge ordered the deactivation of Byron Black’s device, a Tennessee Department of Correction official said in a court declaration that Nashville General Hospital said they could disable it the day before his August 5 execution at 10am, but would not come to the prison on execution day, as the judge had ordered.

The judge ultimately allowed some leniency, saying Black could be moved to the hospital the morning of the execution.

But on Wednesday, Nashville General Hospital spokeswoman Cathy Poole said the medical centre did not agree to take part at all, saying the hospital “has no role in State executions”.

The statement adds a significant complication to the court case, which relied on the state’s comment about Nashville General’s expected involvement. The order is under appeal, as the days dwindle before the execution.

Black’s lawyers say his heart device would continuously shock him in an attempt to restore his heart’s normal rhythm due to the lethal injection of pentobarbital, but the state disputes that and argues that even if shocks were triggered, Black would not feel them.