By Vanguard Staff
Key points:
- Byron Lewis Black seeks US Supreme Court stay of execution.
- Tennessee concedes Black meets criteria for intellectual disability.
- Black’s condition has worsened with age, and he now suffers from multiple illnesses.
Byron Lewis Black, a death-sentenced prisoner in Tennessee, has asked the United States Supreme Court to stay his execution scheduled for August 5, 2025, and to review his case on the grounds that he is constitutionally ineligible for execution due to intellectual disability. The State of Tennessee has formally conceded that Black meets the clinical and legal criteria for intellectual disability, but Tennessee courts have denied relief, citing procedural bars.
On July 29, Black’s attorneys filed a petition for writ of certiorari and a motion for stay of execution with the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that executing Mr. Black would violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
“Unless the Supreme Court stays Byron Black’s execution, Tennessee will violate the Eighth Amendment and the Due Process Clause by killing him,” said Kelley Henry, Chief of the Capital Habeas Unit in Nashville and one of Mr. Black’s attorneys.
The petition points to unanimous expert findings over a 20-year period diagnosing Mr. Black with intellectual disability. Even Dr. Susan Vaught, the State’s own expert who had once testified in 2004 that Mr. Black did not meet the criteria, reversed her opinion in 2022. In a signed statement, she concluded, “In my professional opinion, Byron Black does meet criteria established in the 2021 changes to [Tennessee law] for diagnosis of intellectual disability.”
The State of Tennessee has stipulated to Dr. Vaught’s findings and agreed in writing that Mr. Black’s capital sentence should be commuted to life in prison. However, Tennessee courts ruled that because Mr. Black had previously litigated his intellectual disability claim—under outdated standards—he is barred from raising it again under the state’s revised law.
Black’s lawyers argue that this constitutes a “constitutional Catch-22”: because Black asserted his rights too early, before legal and scientific standards had evolved, he is now blocked from accessing a legal remedy that would clearly apply to him today. “If he had sat on his rights and waited,” the petition argues, “he would unquestionably be removed from death row.”
The petition also underscores the broader implications of the case. In the upcoming term, the Supreme Court will hear Hamm v. Smith, which concerns how courts should consider multiple IQ scores in intellectual disability claims. The Eleventh Circuit opinion in Hamm specifically cited Black’s 2017 case, Black v. Carpenter, as evidence of conflicting precedent between the circuits. The stay application argues that “Mr. Black has established that he is likely to succeed on the merits of his claim,” and that his execution should not proceed while the Court is considering a related legal question.
Black’s individual history is also presented as compelling evidence of his disability. He has tested with IQ scores ranging from 57 to 76 on individually administered, clinically validated tests. In contrast, courts have relied on outdated group-administered school tests to deny his claims—an approach widely rejected by current medical standards.
Mr. Black has shown profound deficits in adaptive functioning since childhood. According to the petition, he repeated second grade, never lived independently, could not manage money, and failed to understand basic social cues or complete simple household tasks. One expert described his decision-making ability as showing “severe impairment in applying reasoning and decision-making to real-world situations.”
His condition has only worsened with age. Mr. Black now suffers from dementia, diabetes, congestive heart failure, end-stage kidney disease, prostate cancer, and a broken hip. He uses a wheelchair and requires dialysis. He also has an implanted cardiac defibrillator (ICD), which the Davidson County Chancery Court ordered to be deactivated on the morning of his execution to avoid a prolonged and torturous death. The State of Tennessee has appealed that order, and the Tennessee Supreme Court has not yet ruled.
“Mr. Black is a frail, wheelchair-bound man with severe illness,” his attorneys write. “His execution would be a grotesque spectacle.”
The Tennessee Supreme Court denied Black’s recent motion to recall the mandate in his case, ruling that “the circumstances should be ‘sufficient to override the strong public policy that there should be an end to a case in litigation’” and concluding that his intellectual disability claim had been “fully litigated on the merits.” In its ruling, the court dismissed the State’s own stipulation and found no extenuating circumstances to justify revisiting the case.
Mr. Black’s attorneys argue that this ruling disregards binding U.S. Supreme Court precedent, including Atkins v. Virginia, Hall v. Florida, and Moore v. Texas, which require courts to follow current clinical standards and give meaningful consideration to intellectual disability claims.
In their petition, they write: “There is simply no credible evidence to the contrary. Every single expert who has evaluated Mr. Black agrees that he is intellectually disabled. Every. Single. One.”
The Supreme Court is expected to decide in the coming days whether to grant a stay of execution or allow the State of Tennessee to proceed with the execution of a man it has conceded is constitutionally ineligible for the death penalty.
