Judge won’t halt execution over intellectual disability

By KIMBERLEE KRUESI
Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A judge has dismissed a motion to declare a Tennessee inmate intellectually disabled, a move that would have prohibited his upcoming execution. Senior Judge Walter Kurtz wrote on Tuesday that federal courts had previously determined Byron Black was not intellectually disabled and therefore was not eligible to have the decision considered once again. Black’s attorneys had argued the 65-year-old should be spared. They cite a 2021 law that made Tennessee’s prohibition against executing people with intellectual disability retroactive. Black is scheduled to be executed on Aug. 18 for his murder convictions in the 1988 killings of his girlfriend and her two young daughters.