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As Execution Date Nears, Questions About Death Penalty for the Severely Mentally Ill

At 7:00 p.m. Central Time on August 9, in a booth inside a Middle Tennessee prison, Billy Ray Irick will be injected with a chemical combination that will end his life. As the date draws near, questions and arguments about applying the death penalty to the severely mentally disabled continue.

Irick, a Knoxville native, is on death row for the 1985 rape and murder of seven-year-old Paula Dyer. Irick’s attorneys and advocates for mentally ill say Irick is mentally unfit for execution. The Nashville Scene reported in February concerns about Irick’s mental condition arose beginning in 1965.

Prosecutors and judges disagree. Eight years ago, the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that Irick was indeed mentally competent to be executed. This past January, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Irick’s challenge. The legal tussle has been complicated by low supplies of lethal injection drugs and court challenges to the state’s procedure. Irick’s execution date has been set and re-set four times since 2010.

Against this backdrop, mental health advocates argue executing the severely mentally ill is not a necessary component of justice. On July 18, the Tennessee Alliance for the Severe Mental Illness Exclusion (TASMIE) convened a panel that included Vanderbilt psychiatrist Jeff Stovall, public defender Susanne Bales, and CEO of the Mental Health Association of East Tennessee Ben Harrington. State Senator and physician Richard Briggs was present in the audience.

“Is it right for our society to put to death those who are incapable of even understanding their crime and punishment?” Bales said at the discussion.

The severely mentally ill, she argued, don’t know what they’ve done or what is going to happen to them, making them ineligible for death row.

Court records note that Dr. Peter Brown, a forensic psychiatrist, examined Irick in 2009 and 2010. He found Irick understood the difference between right and wrong, and could recall his emotional state on the day of the murder. When asked if he felt Irick was competent to be executed, Brown said, “I don’t have an opinion about that.”

A 2010 state Supreme Court ruling concluded, “Although he professes his innocence, Mr. Irick understands that he has been convicted of murdering the victim, a seven-year-old girl, and that he is scheduled to be executed for this crime.”

TASMIE says it wants to see changes in how trials are carried out for those who are severely mentally ill. The group argues mental treatment is a better option than jail or the death penalty. Panelists at the July 18 discussion said they did not advocate for free passes to severely mentally ill persons, but for more specialized and appropriate sentences.

A civil trial challenging the medical safety of the three-drug cocktail state officials plan to use is still in progress in Nashville. The judge says she plans to rule shortly after arguments conclude.

Meanwhile, Billy Ray Irick is still set to be executed by lethal injection next month, barring any legal roadblock. His would be the first execution in the state since 2009, and the seventh since Tennessee reinstated the death penalty in 1974.

This story was researched and written by intern Colton Zenni and News Director Brandon Hollingsworth.