Alabama inmate put to death after last minute stay denied

Alabama inmate, 64, becomes first to be put to death in the state since lethal injections were paused over string of botched executions

• James Barber was sentenced to death for killing 75-year-old Dorothy Epps

An Alabama inmate who killed an elderly woman in 2001 has this morning become the first to be put to death in the state since lethal injections were paused over a string of botched executions.

James Barber, 64, was put to death by lethal injection at 1:56 a.m. at the William Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, hours after the Supreme Court denied a stay of execution bid.

In the hours leading up to the execution, Barber had 22 visitors and two phone calls, a prison spokesperson said. He ate a final meal of loaded hashbrowns, western omelet, spicy sausage and toast.

Barber was convicted and sentenced to death for killing 75-year-old Dorothy Epps during a robbery in her home in Harvest, Alabama on the night of May 20, 2001.

Prosecutors said Barber, a handyman, confessed to killing Epps with a claw hammer and fleeing with her purse. Jurors voted 11-1 to recommend a death sentence, which a judge imposed.

James Barber, 64, was convicted and sentenced to death for killing 75-year-old Dorothy Epps during a robbery in her home in Harvest, Alabama on the night of May 20, 2001

The execution went ahead after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene at the last moment. 

It is the first execution scheduled in the state since Governor Kay Ivey paused them in November to conduct an internal review after two lethal injections were called off because of difficulties inserting IVs into the condemned men’s veins.

Attorneys for inmate Alan Miller said prison staff poked him with needles for over an hour as they unsuccessfully tried to connect an IV line to him and at one point left him hanging vertically on a gurney during his aborted execution in September.

State officials called off the November execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith after they were unsuccessful in connecting the second of two required lines.

Advocacy groups claimed a third execution, carried out in July after a delay because of IV problems, was botched because of multiple attempts to connect the line, a claim the state has disputed.

Ivey lifted the suspension after the Department of Corrections added medical professionals, obtained new equipment and conducted rehearsals for executions.

The state also expanded the time allowed for an execution to be carried out before the expiration of the warrant.

Barber argued to the United States Court of Appeals that his execution should be halted because he is at substantial risk of serious harm and ‘torture’ under current protocols. The court denied that appeal on Wednesday.

Barber’s execution came hours after Oklahoma executed Jemaine Cannon for stabbing a Tulsa woman to death with a butcher knife in 1995 after his escape from a prison work center.

Barber was put to death by lethal injection at 1:56 a.m. at the William Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, hours after the Supreme Court denied a stay of execution bid

‘Mrs. Epps and her family have waited for justice for twenty-two years,’ the Alabama attorney general’s office wrote in a court filing.

Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said the prison system had added to its pool of medical professionals, ordered new equipment and conducted additional rehearsals.

Attorneys for Barber argued his execution ‘will likely be botched in the same manner as the prior three’.

The Supreme Court denied Barber’s request for a stay without comment. 

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the decision in a writing joined by Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

‘The Eighth Amendment demands more than the State´s word that this time will be different. The Court should not allow Alabama to test the efficacy of its internal review by using Barber as its “guinea pig,”‘ Sotomayor wrote.

The Alabama attorney general’s office had urged the Supreme Court to let the execution proceed.

The state wrote that the previous executions were called off because of a ‘confluence of events-including health issues specific to the individual inmates and last-minute litigation brought by the inmates that dramatically shortened the window for ADOC officials to conduct the executions’.

‘Dorothy Epps, Smith’s victim, has survivors who have already waited overlong to see justice done,’ the office added.

One of the changes Alabama made following the internal review was to give the state more time to carry out executions.

The Alabama Supreme Court did away with its customary midnight deadline to get an execution underway in order to give the state more time to establish an IV line and battle last-minute legal appeals.

Legal and ethical questions have swirled around capital punishment in the United States after several lethal injections have been botched in recent years. State governments and the federal government have also struggled to obtain the necessary drugs.

The number of executions in the United States has drastically fallen since 1999, when a record 98 executions were carried out. Capital punishment was reinstated in the United States in 1976.

Over the last five years, a total of 78 death row inmates have been executed, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

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