Alabama accused of torture for resuming use of 'inhumane' lethal injection that took record 3 hours to kill inmate last year
Alabama is set to resume its executions with a death row inmate who battered a 75-year-old woman to death with a claw hammer - a year after it halted the punishment as critics say the flawed process is tantamount to torture.
Convicted killer James Barber is scheduled to receive a lethal cocktail in an IV by 6am Friday for the 2001 murder of Dorothy Epps. A handyman by trade, he murdered her in cold blood with both fists and a hammer before stealing her purse.
It comes a year after the state infamously botched the execution of Joe Nathan James, who was subjected to an agonizing three-hour ordeal as officials struggled to insert an IV line before killing him - the longest execution in US history.
Two more executions were abandoned in September and November 2022 after officials painfully failed to insert IV lines into the inmates.
The state then launched an investigation amid accusations it had violated the eighth amendment of the constitution, which protects against 'cruel and unusual punishment'.
But that review has been slammed for being short-sighted after it recommended extending the window death warrants are valid by up to 30 hours to allow officials more time to insert an IV line.
It also recommended adding an extra strap to the gurney that holds the inmates down, a move critics claim will simply restrict their movement and help conceal their pain from the chamber's public gallery.
Maya Foa, the director of human rights group Reprieve US, told DailyMail.com that Barber's execution could become America's latest death row disaster.
'Given Alabama’s recent history of botched executions, it is staggering that James Barber’s lethal injection is set to take place,' she said.
'Three executions in a row went horribly wrong in Alabama last year ... the fact that Alabama has added a strap to the gurney to limit movement and conceal pain only confirms the inhumanity of lethal injections and the state’s approach.
'Extending the time frame for executions raises the chances that Alabama will set another record for the longest execution in American history, after the death of Joe Nathan James Jr last year.
'Alabama is on the wrong side of history, doubling down on this cruel, outdated punishment as states across the USA turn away from the death penalty.'
Activists like Foa have been desperately battling to stop Barber's execution, which will fall almost exactly a year-to-the-day since James's death row calamity.
Problems inserting an IV line into James's body reportedly led to an attempted cut-down procedure, which would have caused James to struggle and left him with injuries to his hands and wrists before he eventually died.
Following his three-hour struggle, the failed executions of Alan Miller in September and Kenneth Smith in November raised serious questions over Alabama's ability to humanely carry out the process.
In all three cases, officials struggled to insert an IV line, a painful ordeal where staff repeatedly jab and puncture inmates throughout their body to find a vein. In Miller's case, it took officials an hour and 30 minutes of stabbing his arm with a needle before they abandoned the execution.
As it investigated itself away from the public eye, Alabama's prison system argued that the executions of Miller and Smith were abandoned because execution warrants did not last long enough.
Experts also warn that the IV access process used in executions is far worse than that seen in hospitals. Typically, medical professionals turn to specialized equipment after two failed attempts to insert the IV line.
But lethal injections are usually carried out by department of corrections staff rather than medical professionals.
Prior drug use, age, weight and certain illnesses can also make it more difficult to insert an IV line - issues that are often exacerbated after decades on death row.
A year on from the crisis that sparked the review, Barber has said he is nervous to be strapped to the gurney due to the clear flaws in the process.
'I have a fair amount of trepidation about the process that they obviously haven’t perfected — to be at their hands and be the first one after they didn’t do a true review of the protocol and made no real changes,' he told NBC News.
'I don’t know what to expect,' Barber said. 'But then, I know I’m in God’s hands, so it’s not fear. It’s hard to explain.'
After announcing the state will resume executions, Alabama's Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said new equipment would be ordered and appropriate staffing would be ensured.
Barber has also launched a lawsuit to fight his pending execution, and he testified earlier this month remotely to argue that his death would be a violation of the constitution.
He testified that after Smith's abandoned execution in November, his fellow death row inmate had a 'really bad, bad looking wound' from where the execution team struggled to insert the IV.
Despite his heinous crime, the eighth amendment to the Constitution prohibits 'cruel and unusual punishment', which was originally introduced as a protection against abuse of power by government bodies. Following a string of problematic executions, there are mounting fears the practice has become unconstitutional.
The move to execute Barber comes after a string of death row fiascos cast doubt over their role in America's legal system. However, another issue also emerged at the underbelly of the practice, with some states allegedly resorting to sourcing lethal injection drugs from the black market.
The crisis was most prominently noted in 2018 by Joe Allbaugh, the Director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, when he admitted in a press conference he had turned to 'seedy individuals' so executions could continue.
Allbaugh added that he was trying to source the lethal cocktail from 'all around the world, right down to the backstreets of the Indian subcontinent'.
The shortage primarily stems from a lack of willingness from pharmacies to produce the drugs used in executions. Pfizer's decision to halt use of its products in 2016 closed the last remaining open-market source of the drugs.
Yet, executions have continued, with the Texas Department of Corrections under fire for extending the use-by dates of lethal injection drug pentobarbital for years.
The state denies the out-of-date cocktail makes the procedure more painful, a claim disputed by attorneys representing inmates who are continuing to be put to death with the drugs.
Six condemned Texas inmates made headlines after launching a lawsuit against the authority last year, arguing the use of the drugs violated the US Constitution's statutes against cruel and unusual punishment.
But while the lawsuit made its way through the courts, inmates who signed onto the case, including convicted killers Wesley Ruiz, John Balentine, Gary Green, Arthur Brown Jr and Robert Fratta, have been executed by the same authority they are suing.
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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
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde