For the first time since 2009, three executions will take place in Tennessee.
Officials on Thursday confirmed the following executions for 2018:
- James Hawkins - May 9
- Billy Ray Irick - August 9
- Sedrick Clayton - November 28
The last execution in Tennessee was held on December 2, 2009. In that case, 53-year-old Cecil Johnson was executed by lethal injection. He was the sixth person executed in the state since 2000 and had spent 28 years on death row.
Officials told NewsChannel 5 that other executions have been planned since 2009, but they were not conducted. These will be the first to be held since that time.
Johnson was convicted of a 1980 triple murder at Bob Bell's Market in Nashville. The murders happened during an apparent robbery, and the victims were the market owner's 12-year-old son and two men who were sitting in a cab outside.
In October 2016, 33 death row inmates sued saying lethal injection was cruel and unusual punishment. Months later, the Tennessee Supreme Court turned the ruling aside, dismissing the lawsuit.
According to documents with the Tennessee Department of Correction, Hawkins and Clayton have been on death row for first degree murder, and Irick has been sentenced to death for murder.
