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August 10, 2018
Charles Strobel, founder of Room In The Inn and a long-time opponent to the death penalty, listens as Ray Krone, who was twice convicted of murder and sentenced to death, tells the story of his exoneration through the testing of DNA evidence during a rally against the execution of Billy Ray Irick, held Aug. 7 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. Every time the prospect of an execution arises, Strobel said, it stirs up for he and his family strong emotions and memories of their mother, Mary Catherine Strobel, who was well-known in the Catholic community for her service to others and was murdered by an escaped inmate on a multi-state killing spree. Mrs. Strobel’s children asked prosecutors not to seek the death penalty for her killer. Irick, who was convicted in 1986 of the brutal rape and murder of a 7-year-old girl, was executed on Thursday, Aug. 9. The execution is the state’s first since 2009. Photo by Rick Musacchio Two Tennessee bishops called the execution of Billy Ray Irick on Thursday, Aug. 9, “unnecessary.”
“Tonight’s execution of Billy Ray Irick was unnecessary. It served no useful purpose,” Bishop J. Mark Spalding of Nashville and Bishop Richard Stika of Knoxville said in a statement after Irick was executed at Riverbend Maximum Security Institute in Nashville.
“In this time of sadness, that began many years ago with the tragic and brutal death of Paula Dyer and continues with another death tonight, we believe that only Jesus Christ can bring consolation and peace,” the bishops said. “We continue to pray for Paula and for her family. And we also pray for Billy Ray Irick, that his final human thoughts were of remorse and sorrow for we believe that only Christ can serve justice.
“We pray for the people of Tennessee that they will embrace the light and life that is Jesus Christ. And we hope that we may all come to cherish the dignity that his love instills in every person – at every stage of life,” they added.
Irick, 59, died at 7:48 p.m. CDT Aug. 9 after Tennessee prison officials administered a lethal combination of chemicals, including midazolam, which was intended to render him unconscious, and then vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride, which were intended to stop his lungs and heart.
Irick was the first person executed in Tennessee since 2009 and was the first person executed in the United States since it was announced on Aug. 2 that Pope Francis had ordered a change in the Catechism of the Catholic Church declaring that the death penalty is inadmissible in all cases.
He was convicted in 1986 for the murder and rape of 7-year-old Paula Dyer of Knoxville and had been on death row ever since. Irick had been living with Dyer’s family at the time of her murder.
Attorneys for Irick had filed a last-minute appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking a stay of his execution until their lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol could be heard by the state Court of Appeals.
Five hours before the execution, the Supreme Court rejected the appeal, with a dissent filed by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
“In refusing to grant Irick a stay, the Court today turns a blind eye to a proven likelihood that the state of Tennessee is on the verge of inflicting several minutes of torturous pain on an inmate in its custody, while shrouding his suffering behind a veneer of paralysis,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent.
“I cannot in good conscience join in this ‘rush to execute’ without first seeking every assurance that our precedent permits such results. ... If the law permits this execution to go forward in spite of the horrific final minutes that Irick may well experience, then we stopped being a civilized nation and accepted barbarism.”
According to press reports, before he died Irick was coughing, choking and gasping for air and his face turned dark purple as the lethal drugs took effect.
“I’m fundamentally opposed to the death penalty … but it’s certainly worse if you’re torturing the person,” said Deacon James Booth, director of prison ministry for the Diocese of Nashville, who stood outside the prison with a group of about 20 fellow anti-death penalty activists as Irick was executed.
On a humid night at sunset, spiritual leaders led prayers and read Scripture to the group, others who knew Irick from visiting him on death row shared memories about him.
“Being in that physical proximity, knowing that behind all the concrete walls and barbed wire a killing is going on is a very sobering thing,” Deacon Booth said.
Before the execution, Deacon Booth was already planning how he would minister to death row inmates when he visits Riverbend in the coming days.
“I will let them speak,” he said, to say whatever they want in order to process the emotions and the grief they might feel, akin to losing a family member, Deacon Booth said.
While the men on death row are guilty of horrific crimes including rape and murder, Deacon Booth believes, and the Catholic Church teaches, that they still retain their human dignity and capacity for forgiveness and redemption.
“The reality is that this is a very tiny village of about 60 people, some of whom have been living together for decades, and when one of them is taken out on death watch, or executed, it is like losing a family member,” Deacon Booth said.
Tennessee’s bishops, in the weeks before the execution, had twice issued statements calling for the end of the death penalty and condemning Irick’s execution.
“The state has the obligation to protect all people and to impose just punishment for crimes, but in the modern world the death penalty is not required for either of these ends,” Bishops Spalding and Stika said in a statement released on Aug. 9 hours before Irick was executed. “We echo the words of Pope Francis, who recently declared as definitive teaching that the death penalty is unacceptable in all cases ‘because it attacks the dignity of the person, a dignity that is not lost even after having committed the most serious crimes.’ … We pray for a conversion of hearts to put an end to the practice of the death penalty in all cases and for an increase of the respect for life in all stages from conception until natural death.”
Bishops Spalding, Stika and Martin Holley of Memphis wrote a letter to Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam last month, urging him to halt Irick’s execution and the three other executions scheduled before the end of the year. They wrote that they “join with many other religious denominations in firm opposition to the execution of even those convicted of heinous crimes.”
The letter, which has received wide media coverage in the national Catholic press and the local secular press, stated, “Rather than serving as a path to justice, the death penalty contributes to the growing disrespect for human life.”
The governor of Tennessee had the authority to issue a stay of execution but Haslam declined to do so. In a statement he said, “I took an oath to uphold the law. Capital punishment is the law in Tennessee and was ordered in this case by a jury of Tennesseans and upheld by more than a dozen state and federal courts.
“My role is not to be the 13th juror or the judge or to impose my personal views, but to carefully review the judicial process to make sure it was full and fair. Because of the extremely thorough judicial review of all of the evidence and arguments at every stage in this case, clemency is not appropriate,” Haslam said.
Irick’s execution had been stayed twice before, once in 2010 and again in 2014, as attorneys argued the state’s lethal injection protocol constituted “cruel and unusual punishment” and that Irick’s history of severe mental illness was not taken into adequate consideration during his sentencing or throughout the lengthy appeals process.
The timing of the execution, just one week after Pope Francis announced that he was officially changing the catechism to oppose capital punishment in all instances, is disheartening to Deacon Booth. He expressed disappointment that Haslam chose to let the execution proceed.
“When the head of the largest Christian denomination in the world speaks out forcefully against the death penalty … that should be kind of a force that should stay the hand of revenge, and it’s hard to see this as anything but revenge,” Deacon Booth said of Irick’s execution.
“I’m somewhat puzzled that Governor Haslam would want to leave that legacy behind,” Deacon Booth said.
A day ahead of the scheduled execution, Deacon Booth said he was “profoundly disappointed” that the state of Tennessee would take the calculated steps to kill a man by lethal injection.
Even with Pope Francis’ definitive teaching opposing the death penalty now mobilizing more Catholics to actively work for an end to capital punishment, “the truth is that it will be a long fight to have the death penalty abolished around the world,” Deacon Booth said.