Alabama can go ahead with its plan to execute convicted murderer James Barber on Thursday night, his first execution since a lull on capital punishment sparked by a series of failed lethal injection attempts was lifted in February.
in a miss 2-1A federal appeals court panel on Wednesday denied Barber’s request to block his execution out of fear that he might be subject to “substantial harm.”
The majority wrote that the lower court did not err in finding that the Alabama Department of Corrections modified its execution procedures, so its “assessment that the same pattern would continue to occur is purely speculative.”
However, in a dissenting opinion, US Circuit Judge Jill Pryor criticized the state’s foreclosure review process for being conducted “totally outside the reach of public scrutiny or any court, and without saying what came of it.” wrong or what was fixed as a result.
The state “swears that it is ready to try again, with Mr. Barber as its guinea pig,” he wrote.
Barber, 64, will die by lethal injection at 6 pm local time at the William C. Holman Correctional Center in Atmore, unless there is a last-minute reprieve. He has been on death row for nearly 20 years for the 2001 robbery and murder of Dorothy Epps75-year-old homeowner for whom he worked as a handyman.
He told NBC News in a phone interview Saturday that he was skeptical the state could carry out his execution without incident.
“I have quite a bit of concern about the process that they obviously haven’t perfected — being in their hands and being first after they didn’t do a real review of the protocol and they didn’t make any real changes,” he said. .
Barber has said that he found salvation through Christianity during his time in prison and formed a friendship with Sarah Gregory, a granddaughter of the victim, who has he said she forgives him and does not want to see him executed.
“I don’t want people to think, well, I want to die,” he said. “Nobody wants to die. I think there are many things I can accomplish and people I can help. Change hearts. I wish I was close, I would. But just to be clear, I’m not holding on to this life.” .”
Gov. Kay Ivey’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The state’s attorney general, Steve Marshall, agreed with the ruling of the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
“Dorothy Epps was brutally murdered 22 years ago,” she said in a statement on Thursday. “The Eleventh Circuit’s decision brings us one step closer to justice for this heinous crime.”
Barber’s planned execution will be the first to proceed under a new procedure approved by the state Supreme Court that allows the governor to set a time frame for when a death row inmate can be executed, rather than within a single day constrained by a midnight deadline.
Ivey previously said that “the brief pause in executions was necessary to make sure that we can bring that justice and that closure” to the families of the victims.
The change came after Alabama grappled with a series of troubled foreclosures last year.
In July, convicted murderer Joe Nathan James Jr. was executed by lethal injection after a three-hour delay related to difficulties establishing an IV in a vein.
Two months later, the state halted the execution of Alan Miller, sentenced to death for a 1999 workplace shooting, due to problems accessing his veins.
Then, in November, the state again had to cancel an execution when it couldn’t find a suitable vein for Kenneth Eugene. blacksmith — sentenced to death for a murder-for-hire plot in 1988 — before the midnight deadline.
After a three-month review, Ivey announced executions would resume after state prison commissioner John Hamm said internal changes were underway, including ordering new equipment and ensuring adequate staffing. . But details about the review’s findings were not released, and critics have said an outside agency should have been tasked with evaluating the state’s capital punishment protocols.
The state attorney general’s office said in court documents that it is showing “good faith” in using a new IV team whose members are properly licensed. The state has also said that no person responsible for placing IV lines in past executions would be involved in Barber’s execution and that additional straps would be made available to secure an inmate on the execution stretcher.
In 2018, Alabama approved an alternative method of execution to lethal injection: nitrogen hypoxia, which is death by inhalation of nitrogen gas, but corrections officials have said the protocol to carry it out is not yet complete.
