An attorney is seeking a stay in his client's execution next week amid the ongoing appeal of a judge's decision to uphold Tennessee's new lethal injection procedure.
In Monday's motion with the state Supreme Court, inmate Billy Ray Irick's attorney said the appeal can't be fully resolved before his scheduled Aug. 9 execution with a three-drug series, starting with midazolam.
A Davidson County judge ruled last week that lawyers for 33 death row inmates didn't prove there's a substantially less painful execution method or that the state's planned drug cocktail would torture an inmate to death.
The attorneys appealed Monday to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
Irick would be the first inmate Tennessee has executed since 2009. He was convicted of raping and killing a 7-year-old Knoxville girl in 1985.
