Alabama: Lawyer calls aborted execution attempt for Doyle Lee Hamm 'torture'

Court file photo of Doyle Lee Hamm's veins prior to the execution

Armed with a court order, a doctor will examine an Alabama death-row inmate on Sunday for signs of injury or suffering sustained during an aborted execution last week.

Prison officials said they called off a lethal injection for Doyle Lee Hamm, convicted in the 1987 murder of a hotel clerk, on Thursday night because they didn't have enough time to carry it out before a death warrant expired at midnight.

"I wouldn't necessarily characterize what we had tonight as a problem," Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn told reporters, blaming last-minute appeals for the delay.

But Hamm's attorney said the execution attempt was badly botched, with the prison team repeatedly jabbing the cancer survivor in the legs with needles in a futile effort to find a usable vein.

The 2 members of the IV team - each working on a different side of the body - flipped Hamm onto his stomach to search for access points on the back of his leg, lawyer Bernard Harcourt said a statement.

When that failed, Harcourt said in court papers, the IV team tried to place what's known as a central line into a larger vein.

"Multiple times, they tried to insert a catheter into Doyle Hamm's right groin, causing severe bleeding and pain," Harcourt wrote.

When Harcourt was able to meet with his client Friday afternoon, Hamm was bruised and limping, the lawyer said.

"This went beyond ghoulish justice and cruel and unusual punishment," Harcourt, a Columbia Law professor, said in a statement. "It was torture."

Harcourt went to federal court and convinced a judge to order a medical exam for Hamm, who has been on death row for 30 years.

The lawyer also wanted to examine the execution chamber and the notes prison workers took during the procedure, but the judge turned him down.

She did, however, order the Department of Corrections to preserve the notes and any other material from the execution try, including the clothing Hamm was wearing.

All prisoners have a constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment, with the courts deciding if a particular execution is likely to violate that.

Before Thursday, Harcourt had warned that due to Hamm's history of drug abuse and his illnesses, it would be impossible to find good veins to deliver the deadly drugs.

A judge ruled the execution could proceed as long as the IV wasn't inserted in Hamm's arms. The U.S. Supreme Court, with three justices dissenting, then declined to stop the lethal injection.

Prison officials have given few details about what went on in the death chamber before Hamm got a reprieve, and they did not respond to a request for comment this weekend.

A new execution date has not been set, but Dunn told reporters Thursday that he did not think the trouble the team had finding a vein would prevent the state from killing Hamm in the future.

"The only indication I have is that in their medical judgement it was more of a time issue, given the late hour," he said.

3 months ago, Ohio called off the execution of Alva Campbell after the medical team tried for 30 minutes to find a good vein without success.

And in 2009, another Ohio inmate, Romell Broom, was spared after the execution worked for two hours to insert a needle. In appeals, he's argued a second attempt would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

Source: NBC News, February 25

Death row inmate's lawyer calls execution attempt 'botched'; judge cancels Monday review

The attorney for a death row inmate who was set to be executed Thursday night is calling the attempt "botched," and a federal judge has cancelled a hearing she had set up to review what happened.

Court records entered Friday show a hearing was set for Monday in U.S. Chief District Judge Karon O Bowdre's court.

She ordered Doyle Lee Hamm to undergo a full medical examination on Saturday, and those results must be given to the court by Monday morning. The judge also ordered the state to preserve all evidence that could be relevant to the matter, including the clothing Hamm was wearing Thursday night when he was preparing to be executed.

But on Friday afternoon Bowdre partially rescinded her order, canceling Monday's hearing and lifting the requirement for the doctor conducting the examination to file a written report by 9 a.m. Monday.

Doyle Lee Hamm was set to be executed Thursday at 6 p.m. by lethal injection. He was granted a temporary stay by the U.S. Supreme Court before 6 p.m., but that stay was vacated just after 9 p.m. and the court cleared the way for 61-year-old Hamm to be put to death. At approximately 11:30 p.m., Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn announced they wouldn't be executing Hamm that night, because medical personnel would not be able to prepare him for the procedure by midnight when the death warrant expired.

Death warrants expire at midnight, meaning no execution can be started past 11:59 p.m. on the date specified on the warrant.

Dunn did not specify what exactly the problem was and what medical personnel had been doing for more than 2 hours between when the stay was lifted and when medical personnel advised officials on the situation.

Bernard Harcourt, Hamm's longtime attorney and a professor of law and political science at Columbia University, said on Twitter Thursday night, "they probably couldn't find a vein and had been poking him for over 2 1/2 hours.... as I had told them since July! Unconscionable. Simply unconscionable."

Harcourt had argued to courts that Hamm had cancer and his veins could not support the lethal injection. A federal judge in Birmingham on Tuesday issued an order saying the execution could proceed, provided the state used veins in Hamm's lower extremities and did not attempt to use veins in his arms - a procedure the state had never tried before. The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that order.

During the arguments the Alabama Attorney General's office stated an independent medical examiner's report showed that, contrary to claims made on Hamm's behalf, the veins in his legs were suitable and and presented no obstacle to the execution.

Early Friday morning, Harcourt called the execution attempt "botched." He said, "The Alabama attorney general, the Alabama Governor, the Governor's General Counsel, and the Alabama Commissioner of Corrections, should resign. Look at their statements before the attempted execution, and compare that to what happened with the botched attempted executions. They should assume responsibility, or resign."

His comment referred to AG Steve Marshall, Gov. Kay Ivey, her counsel, and Commissioner Jeff Dunn. While several organizations and lawyers wrote to Ivey asking her to grant clemency for Hamm, Ivey did not respond to the requests.

Marshall issued a video on social media Wednesday, confirming he received the same letters. "Tomorrow I will not request that Doyle Hamm's execution be stopped, but instead I will ask that justice be served," he said in the video.

Tuesday's order from U.S. Chief District Judge Karon O Bowdre comes after months of a legal battle over whether Doyle Lee Hamm is too sick to be executed by lethal injection.

Marshall read a quote from the United Nations letter, asking the state to spare Hamm's life. "That petition attempts to paint a very sympathetic picture of Doyle Hamm," he said. "What I'm most convinced by is not the words of that petition, but instead what it doesn't tell you. Because it doesn't tell you the circumstances of the crime... and it gives you no understanding of the victim and the consequences to the victim's family of this heinous act."

Hamm was convicted in the 1987 murder and robbery of Patrick Cunningham, a clerk at Anderson's Motel in Cullman. Cunningham was shot execution style and found dead behind the reception desk of the motel. He was a husband and father of 2 children.

"Doyle Hamm received due process and more," Marshall stated in the video.

Source: al.com, February 25, 2018

⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Comments

Tennessee | Questions Raised About the Doctor Who Was Overseeing Tony Caruthers’ Execution

Mark Fowler, according to a deposition, had not placed a central line in a patient for more than a decade when he attempted to put one in Carruthers Around 11 a.m. Thursday morning in the execution chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, a medical doctor stepped in and attempted to place a central IV line in Tony Carruthers’ chest. By that point, the prison staff had spent some 30 minutes trying unsuccessfully to insert a backup IV line that would allow them to proceed with the lethal injection. According to Carruthers’ attorney Maria DeLiberato, who was in the room, after asking a staff member to attempt inserting a line through Carruthers’ jugular vein, the doctor moved on to the central line, which is identified as the last resort in Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol .

EU GSP+ Reform: Will Brussels Finally Enforce Its Own Conditions on Pakistan?

The EU has tightened the rules governing GSP+ trade preferences, but Pakistan’s record raises a harder question: whether Brussels is prepared to suspend market access when a major beneficiary fails to demonstrate sustained compliance with human rights, labour and governance obligations. The European Union has formally adopted revised rules for its Generalised Scheme of Preferences, strengthening the conditions attached to preferential market access for developing countries. The new framework will apply from 1 January 2027 and is intended to tighten monitoring, widen the list of international conventions, and make suspension of benefits easier in cases of serious violations.

Florida executes Richard Knight

Man convicted of killing a woman and her 4-year-old daughter is executed in Florida A Florida man convicted of fatally stabbing his cousin’s girlfriend and the couple’s 4-year-old daughter was put to death Thursday evening, becoming the 7th person executed by the state this year. Richard Knight, 47, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. Knight was convicted of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in the June 2002 killings of Odessia Stephens and her daughter, Hanessia Mullings. The curtain of the death chamber went up promptly at the scheduled 6:00 p.m. execution time. Knight was already strapped down with his arms extended and an IV line in place.

Iran executes Esma Zarei in Ardabil Prison after she gave birth in custody

Hengaw – Saturday, May 23, 2026. Iranian authorities have executed Esma Zarei, a 28-year-old Turkish woman from Parsabad in Ardabil Province, who had previously been sentenced to death on charges of “premeditated murder” in connection with the killing of her husband. She is the sixth woman executed in Iran since the beginning of 2026. According to information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Zarei was executed at dawn on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, in Ardabil Central Prison. She had been sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) after being convicted of her husband’s murder.

Tennessee fails to execute Tony Carruthers after IV difficulties. State won't try again for a year

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee officials on Thursday called off the lethal injection of Tony Carruthers, who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering three people in 1994, after his executioners tried and failed for over an hour to establish an intravenous line. Gov. Bill Lee announced soon afterward that the state would not try again for at least a year. In a written statement, the Tennessee Department of Corrections said medical personnel had quickly established a primary IV line but were unable to find a suitable vein for a backup line as required by the state’s execution protocol. Efforts to insert a central line also failed, and officials called off the execution.

Arizona executes Leroy McGill

Arizona executes inmate who set couple on fire in 'horrific attack' Arizona has executed Leroy McGill for setting 21-year-old Charles Perez and his 24-year-old girlfriend on fire. Perez died the next day and Perez survived with severe burn injuries. Arizona has executed a death row inmate for setting 2 people on fire more than 20 years ago, killing 1 of them and changing the other's life forever. The state executed Leroy McGill, 63, by lethal injection on Wednesday, May 20, for the 2002 murder of 21-year-old Charles Perez. McGill set Perez and his girlfriend on fire after they accused him of theft, court records say. Perez died of his injuries the next day while his girlfriend survived with severe burns.

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

The following document is a firsthand account of the final moments of Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer executed by guillotine at Marseille’s Baumettes Prison on September 10, 1977. The record—dated September 9—was written by Monique Mabelly, a judge appointed by the state to witness the proceedings. Djandoubi’s execution would ultimately be the last carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. At the time, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing—who had publicly voiced his "deep aversion to the death penalty" prior to his election—rejected Djandoubi’s appeal for clemency. Choosing to let "justice take its course," the President allowed the execution to proceed, just as he had in two previous cases during his term: Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was execu...

Florida: The Daily Routine of Death Row Inmates

The breakfast carts rattle through the concrete prison at about 5:30 am and as they approach Death Row the first sounds of morning repeat the last sounds of night - remote controlled locks clanging open and clunking closed, electric gates whirring, heavy metal doors crashing shut, voices wailing, klaxons blaring. A maximum security prison has no soft or delicate sounds. At the end of each corridor of death row cells a guard opens a heavy door of steel bars and a prison trusty pushes a breakfast cart inside. The door closes behind him and when it locks a second door opens and admits the trusty to the wing. He steers his cart along the wing stopping at each cell to pass a tray of powdered eggs and lukewarm grits through a small slot on the bars. Food is prepared by prison staff and transported in insulated carts to the cells. The food carts are full of cockroaches, the food is often undercooked or just rotten and is served on Styrofoam plates with a plastic "spork" - fork/spoon...

Iraq: German schoolgirl, 17, turned jihadi bride escapes death penalty and is jailed for six years

GERMAN Jihadi bride Linda Wenzel has been jailed for six years in Baghdad for her role as an Islamic enforcer with terror group ISIS. Wenzel, 17, who last year sobbed on TV “I have ruined my life,” could have faced the death penalty. German media reported that a German embassy representative in Iraq was in court yesterday to witness her sentencing. She received five years for joining IS and one year for entering Iraq illegally. Wenzel was found in the rubble of IS stronghold Mosul back in the summer of 2017. Charges were laid against her and three other German women captured with her. Schoolgirl Wenzel fled to Turkey then into Syria last year from her hometown of Pulsnitz in eastern Germany after being groomed online by a Chechen IS fighter who she married. He was killed in the savage fighting for Mosul while she was employed by the terror group enforcing the strict Islamic dress code on women in the city. She burst into tears after her capture and said s...

Florida | Jury recommends death for Otto Lenke, judge to make final call

FORT PIERCE, Fla. — A St. Lucie County jury recommended the death penalty for Otto Lenke on Thursday in the penalty phase of his first-degree murder trial, though the final decision rests with the judge. Lenke, 66, a former Melbourne police officer and Indian River County firefighter , was convicted earlier this month of first-degree murder and first-degree arson in the Feb. 17, 2021, killing of Richard Benson at Fast Frank’s Custom Cycle Components, Benson’s motorcycle repair shop in Fort Pierce . Prosecutors said Lenke shot Benson multiple times inside the shop, then poured a flammable liquid on him and set him on fire while he was still alive. Surveillance video from the shop captured the attack.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog