Alabama Death-Row Prisoner Doyle Hamm, Who Survived Botched Execution Attempt, Dies of Cancer

Alabama death-row pris­on­er Doyle Lee Hamm (pic­tured), whose botched exe­cu­tion attempt was called off in 2018 after 2½ hours of unsuc­cess­ful attempts to set an intra­venous exe­cu­tion line, has died on death row. He was 64 years old.

Hamm had been suf­fer­ing from ter­mi­nal cra­nial and lym­phat­ic can­cer since 2014, which con­tributed to his death on November 27, 2021, his lawyer, Columbia University Law School Professor Bernard Harcourt, said. Harcourt told Birmingham inves­tiga­tive reporter Beth Shelburne that he would miss Hamm’s ​“gen­er­ous, giv­ing spir­it” and the ​“pos­i­tive atti­tude” he con­tin­ued to main­tain after sur­viv­ing the botched execution.

Alabama had been warned in advance that, because of Hamm’s can­cer, hepati­tis C, and pri­or his­to­ry of drug use, it would like­ly be impos­si­ble to set an intra­venous line for his exe­cu­tion. Anesthesiologist Dr. Mark Heath exam­ined Hamm in September 2017 and con­clud­ed that ​“the state is not equipped to achieve venous access in Mr. Hamm’s case.” Harcourt wrote in a New York Times com­men­tary that Hamm ​“will suf­fer an ago­niz­ing, bloody, and painful death” if prison offi­cials pro­ceed with the exe­cu­tion as planned. 

“Our jus­tice is so engrossed with how we kill that it does not even stop to ques­tion the human­i­ty of exe­cut­ing a frail, ter­mi­nal­ly ill pris­on­er,” he wrote. 

In a peti­tion to the U.S. Supreme Court, Harcourt argued that exe­cut­ing Hamm by lethal injec­tion would vio­late the Eighth Amendment ban on cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. The Court briefly stayed his exe­cu­tion, before allow­ing it to pro­ceed over the dis­sent of Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Sonia Sotomayor.

Immediately after the exe­cu­tion was called off, cor­rec­tions com­mis­sion­er Jeff Dunn said, ​“I wouldn’t char­ac­ter­ize what we had tonight as a prob­lem.” Dunn was unable to describe what the state had been doing dur­ing the time that Hamm was being pre­pared for the lethal injec­tion and dis­missed ques­tions about failed attempts to set the IV lines say­ing he was not qual­i­fied to answer med­ical ques­tions, and insist­ing that the exe­cu­tion had been called off because prison per­son­nel did not have ​“suf­fi­cient time” to find a suit­able vein in which to place the intra­venous exe­cu­tion line before the death war­rant expired. A lat­er med­ical exam­i­na­tion of Hamm found that the state like­ly punc­tured his blad­der and artery dur­ing the attempt to set an IV line.

The state’s attempt to exe­cute Hamm sparked a court bat­tle over Alabama’s exe­cu­tion secre­cy pol­i­cy. Three media out­lets — the Associated Press, The Montgomery Advertiser, and the Alabama Media Group — sued the state for access to its exe­cu­tion pro­to­col and to judi­cial records relat­ed to Hamm’s abort­ed exe­cu­tion. On May 30, 2018, Judge Karon Owen Bowdre, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, ordered Alabama to release its lethal-injec­tion pro­to­col and unseal the request­ed records. ​“The pub­lic,” she wrote, ​“needs to know how the State admin­is­ters its laws; with­out such knowl­edge, the pub­lic can­not form an edu­cat­ed opin­ion on this very impor­tant top­ic.” The state reached a con­fi­den­tial set­tle­ment with Hamm in March 2018, agree­ing not to execute him.

Hamm was the third per­son to sur­vive a botched lethal-injec­tion exe­cu­tion attempt. In 2009, Ohio attempt­ed to exe­cute Romell Broom, punc­tur­ing him at least 18 times in the process. In 2016, the Ohio Supreme Court grant­ed the state per­mis­sion to try again, and Ohio sched­uled a new exe­cu­tion date for March 16, 2022. However, Broom died of COVID-19 in December 2020.

Ohio also halt­ed an exe­cu­tion mid­stream in November 2017, after prison staff were unable to set an intra­venous exe­cu­tion line to put ter­mi­nal­ly ill Alva Campbell to death. Campbell was afflict­ed with lung can­cer, chron­ic obstruc­tive pul­monary dis­ease, res­pi­ra­to­ry fail­ure, and prostate can­cer, relied on a colosto­my bag, need­ed oxy­gen treat­ments four times a day, and required a walk­er for even lim­it­ed mobil­i­ty. His lawyers had warned that the exe­cu­tion could become a ​“spec­ta­cle” if prison staff were unable to find a suitable vein.

The start of Campbell’s exe­cu­tion was delayed for near­ly an hour as exe­cu­tion­ers assessed his veins. Witnesses then watched for anoth­er half hour as prison per­son­nel used an ultra­vi­o­let light to probe Campbell’s arm for a vein, repeat­ed­ly stick­ing his arms and legs. Columbus Dispatch reporter Marty Schladen, a media wit­ness to the exe­cu­tion attempt, report­ed that when he was stuck in the leg, ​“Campbell threw his head back and appeared to cry out in pain.” After fail­ing four times to find a suit­able vein in which to set the exe­cu­tion line, Ohio called off the exe­cu­tion and Governor John Kasich grant­ed Campbell a tem­po­rary reprieve. Kasich resched­uled Campbell’s exe­cu­tion for June 2019, but his ill­ness­es killed him first, on March 3, 2018.

The most infa­mous failed exe­cu­tion in U.S. his­to­ry was Louisiana’s botched attempt to put Willie Francis to death in 1946. Francis, a 15-year-old Black boy, was charged with mur­der­ing a white phar­ma­cist in St. Martinville, Louisiana, in 1944. He was tried before an all-white jury who, after his court-appoint­ed coun­sel put up no defense, quick­ly con­vict­ed him and sen­tenced him to death. On May 3, 1946, Louisiana attempt­ed to exe­cute Francis in the elec­tric chair, but an intox­i­cat­ed prison guard had improp­er­ly set up the chair. Francis was bad­ly shocked but sur­vived the exe­cu­tion attempt. In 1947, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a sec­ond attempt to exe­cute him would not vio­late the con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­hi­bi­tion against twice being put in jeop­ardy of life and on May 9, 1947, at age 17, he was exe­cut­ed in the electric chair.