Jonathan Mattise.

State attorneys in Tennessee say a judge’s order to take a death row inmate to the hospital on the morning of his execution to deactivate his heart-regulating device would cause “chaos.” That argument and others came in the state’s appeal Wednesday regarding the implanted device inside Byron Black. State attorneys say protestors would pose a risk on the hospital trip. Black’s attorney says the state presented no evidence of that. Black’s lethal injection is set for Aug. 5. His attorneys say his heart device would continuously shock him during the execution. The state disputes that.

A judge is ordering state officials to turn off a death-row inmate’s heart-regulating implanted device to avert the risk that it might try to shock him during his execution by lethal injection scheduled for Aug. 5. Nashville Chancellor Russell Perkins issued the order Friday. Byron Black is slated to die by a single dose lethal injection of pentobarbital. Black’s attorneys have said that the implantable cardioverter-defibrillator could shock him in an attempt to restore his heart’s normal rhythm, causing extreme pain and suffering. Attorneys for the state deemed it highly unlikely that the pentobarbital would trigger the device’s defibrillating function. And if it did, they say he would be unconscious and unaware, and unable to perceive pain.