Twenty-six men have died by court-ordered execution so far this year and ten others are scheduled to be put to death in seven states during the remainder of the year.
Sixty nine year old Byron Black who is on death row in Tennessee is scheduled to die by lethal injection a week from Tuesday.
Black was convicted 36 years ago of three counts of first-degree murder for the shooting deaths of his girlfriend, Angela Clay, and her two daughters in Nashville.
Black has a pace maker and a Tennessee judge said the state can deactivate the heart-regulating device at a hospital on the morning of his execution, rather than bringing a doctor or technician into the execution chamber.
