Tennessee has set two new execution dates, just days after putting to death its seventh inmate in the past year-and-a-half.
On Monday, the Tennessee Supreme Court ordered an Oct. 8 execution date for inmate Byron Black and a Dec. 3 execution date for Pervis Payne.
Black was convicted of the 1988 murder of his girlfriend and her two daughters. Payne was sentenced to death for the 1987 fatal stabbing of a Memphis woman and her daughter.
With two more executions already scheduled in 2020, Tennessee could see an execution rate not matched since 1948. Attorneys for the inmates have argued they are both intellectually disabled and mentally ill.
Since 2000, Tennessee has carried out 13 execution sentences. More than half of those have been carried out in the past two years -- starting with the August 2018 execution of convicted Knoxville murderer Billy Ray Irick.
The latest, Nicholas Sutton, was put to death on Feb. 20 by electric chair.