State v. Irick

*687Thirty-two years ago a jury convicted Billy Ray Irick of the rape and murder of a seven-year-old child and sentenced him to death. Thirty years ago, this Court affirmed Mr. Irick's murder conviction and sentence of death. State v. Irick , 762 S.W.2d 121 (Tenn. 1988), cert. denied , 489 U.S. 1072, 109 S.Ct. 1357, 103 L.Ed.2d 825 (1989). Over the course of this decades-long journey, all of Mr. Irick's subsequent efforts to obtain relief from his conviction and sentence of death in state and federal courts were unsuccessful. See, e.g., Irick v. State , 973 S.W.2d 643 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1998),…