Alabama | Death-row inmate, 64, dies of cancer four years after surviving botched execution

Doyle Hamm’s failed execution was likened to ‘torture’ after medical team struggled to find vein for lethal injection

A three-decade death row inmate in Alabama has died of cancer four years after his sentence was postponed thanks to an excruciating failed execution.

Doyle Hamm, 64, had been awaiting execution since he was convicted of murder in 1987, and was already terminally ill with lymphatic cancer when his execution was finally scheduled in 2017.

When prison staff attempted to carry it out the following year, they not only failed to kill him but subjected him to a two-and-a-half hour ordeal of excruciating pain while they tried to find a vein through which he could be injected with lethal drugs.

After the failed execution, Mr Hamm’s team filed a medical report detailing the injuries he sustained and the intensity of his suffering during the event, which they said “can only be accurately described as torture”.

Mr Hamm’s team had argued that the combination of cancer diagnosis and treatment with decades of intravenous drug use had made his veins impossible to access for injection, but the Alabama attorney general countered that his cancer was in remission. The lawyers also argued that it was “inhumane to execute somebody who’s at the end of his life suffering and battling with cancer”.

The doctor found 11 puncture wounds on Hamm's body.

After the incident, Mr Hamm’s legal team reached an agreement with the state not to set any date for a future execution in return for their dropping all legal challenges.

Mr Hamm’s experience with the botched procedure – which ran into exactly the problems predicted by a medical expert who examined him – came as lethal injection execution was under severe national pressure.

Oklahoma was still holding off on using the method after botched executions in 2014 and 2015 left inmates in agonising pain for long periods of time.

RELATED | Death Penalty Madness in Alabama

Death penalty defenders often rely on the argument that execution in itself does not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment” and is thus not a violation of the US Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, but the separate question of whether a specific execution protocol crosses the line is harder for them to answer.

Oklahoma did not schedule another lethal injection execution until late 2021, when John Marion Grant had his sentence carried out after more than two decades.

Reporters who witnessed it said that he visibly convulsed and vomited during the 12-minute execution.

The Biden administration this summer placed a moratorium on federal executions pending a “review of the Justice Department’s policies and procedures”.

Source: independent.co.uk, Andrew Naughtie, November 29, 2021

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

Iran | Singer Amirhossein Tataloo at Grave Risk of Execution for Blasphemy

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); May 17, 2025: Asghar Jahangir, Iran’s Judiciary spokesman announced today that the blasphemy death conviction of Amirhossein Maghsoudloo, known as Tataloo, has been upheld by the Supreme Court and sent for enforcement. The singer’s defence lawyer, Majid Naghshi, previously reported filing a judicial review request. Reiterating its opposition to the death penalty in all circumstances, Iran Human Rights considers the use of this inhumane punishment for charges such as blasphemy to be a flagrant violation of international human rights law and calls on civil society and the international community not remain silent about Amirhossein Maghsoudlou’s death penalty.

Indiana man set for execution in state's second since 2009

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Indiana executes Benjamin Ritchie

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Texas Set to Execute Fourth Inmate of the Year

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Saudi Arabia imposes death sentence for Bible smuggling

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Iran | Convicted killer hanged in Tabriz. Execution carried out by his uncle, who was plaintiff in the case

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); May 10, 2025: Hassan Saei, a man on death row for murder, was executed in Tabriz Central Prison. His execution was carried out by his uncle, who was the plaintiff in the case. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was hanged in Tabriz Central Prison on 6 May 2025. His identity has been established as Hassan Saei who was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder by the Criminal Court. An informed source told IHRNGO: “Hassan Saei was arrested for the murder of his cousin and his maternal uncle carried out the execution.”

Florida executes Glen Rogers

Florida executes suspected serial killer once eyed for possible link to the OJ Simpson case A suspected serial killer once scrutinized for a possible link to the O.J. Simpson case that riveted the nation in the 1990s was executed Thursday in Florida for the murder of a woman found dead in a Tampa motel room. Glen Rogers, 62, received a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke and was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m., authorities said. He was convicted in Florida of the 1995 murder of Tina Marie Cribbs, a 34-year-old mother of 2 he had met at a bar.

Wyoming Hasn't Executed Anyone In 33 Years, But It's Tried

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