Medical Expert Says Irick Was Tortured During Execution

A new court filing shows a medical expert concluded to a “reasonable degree of medical certainty” that recently executed Tennessee inmate Billy Ray Irick experienced “torturous” pain during his lethal injection, The Nashville Scene reports. Dr. David Lubarsky asserted that Irick was “aware and sensate during his execution and would have experience the feeling of choking, drowning in his own fluids, suffocating, being buried alive, and the burning sensation caused by the injection of the potassium chloride.” Irick was executed with a controversial three-drug cocktail, the same drug the state intends to use to execute Edmund Zagorski on Oct. 11.