Alabama Execution of Joe Nathan James Marred by Failures to Set IV Line, Embarrassing Dress-Code Controversy, and Disrespect of Victim’s Family

Alabama put Joe Nathan James, Jr. to death on July 28, 2022 against the wish­es of his victim’s fam­i­ly in an exe­cu­tion marred by an hours-long fail­ure to set a lethal-injec­tion intra­venous line and an embar­rass­ing dress-code con­tro­ver­sy in which a cor­rec­tions offi­cial told a female reporter she would not be able to wit­ness the exe­cu­tion because her skirt was too short and she was wear­ing open-toed shoes and sub­ject­ed anoth­er female reporter to a clothing inspection. 

The daugh­ters and broth­er of Faith Hall had asked Governor Kay Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall to stop the exe­cu­tion, say­ing it would fur­ther vic­tim­ize the fam­i­ly. When their request was denied, the Halls released a state­ment say­ing, ​“We pray that God allows us to find heal­ing after today and that one day our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem will lis­ten to the cries of fam­i­lies like ours even if it goes against what the state wish­es. Our voic­es mat­ter and so does the life of Mr. Joe Nathan James, Jr.”

The exe­cu­tion was sched­uled to start at 6:00 p.m. Central time, but for rea­sons ADOC refused to explain it was delayed for three hours. After hours of cryp­tic eva­sions of reporters’ ques­tions about the delay, ADOC issued a state­ment oblique­ly indi­cat­ing that the exe­cu­tion team had expe­ri­enced trou­bles set­ting the IV-line. ​“As Commissioner John Hamm stat­ed last night, when car­ry­ing out the ulti­mate pun­ish­ment, we have pro­to­cols that lay out a very delib­er­ate process to make sure the court’s order is car­ried out cor­rect­ly,” the state­ment said. ​“ADOC’s exe­cu­tion team strict­ly fol­lowed the estab­lished pro­to­col. The pro­to­col states that if the veins are such that intra­venous access can­not be pro­vid­ed, the team will per­form a cen­tral line pro­ce­dure. Fortunately, this was not nec­es­sary and with ade­quate time, intra­venous access was established.”

The exe­cu­tion put Alabama in the inter­na­tion­al spot­light when an ADOC cor­rec­tions offi­cial informed award-win­ning AL​.com reporter Ivana Hrynkiw that she could not enter the prison to wit­ness the exe­cu­tion because a skirt that she had worn while wit­ness­ing three pre­vi­ous exe­cu­tions was ​“too short.” As report­ed in news­pa­pers in England and New Zealand, a male cam­era­man from a dif­fer­ent media out­let pro­vid­ed Hrynkiw a pair of fish­ing waders with sus­penders, after which the cor­rec­tions offi­cial said she could not wear open-toed shoes in the facil­i­ty because they were ​“too reveal­ing.” Hrynkiw then retrieved a pair of ten­nis shoes from her car. The cor­rec­tions offi­cial also sub­ject­ed vet­er­an Associated Press reporter Kim Chandler to a cloth­ing inspec­tion before deem­ing her attire acceptable.

On July 29, AL​.com sent a for­mal com­plaint to ADOC, Gov. Ivey and Attorney General Marshall. Kelly Ann Scott, edi­tor in chief and vice pres­i­dent of con­tent for Alabama Media Group blast­ed ADOC for what she called ​“unac­cept­able, unequal treat­ment.” ​“This was sex­ist and an egre­gious breach of pro­fes­sion­al con­duct. And it should not hap­pen to any oth­er reporter again,” Scott said.

Associated Press Executive Editor Julie Pace sent a let­ter to Gov. Ivey say­ing that “[s]ingling out female reporters for arbi­trary cloth­ing inspec­tions is humil­i­at­ing, dis­crim­i­na­to­ry and sim­ply unac­cept­able behav­ior toward pro­fes­sion­al jour­nal­ists try­ing to cov­er one of the most seri­ous events they are called upon to wit­ness.” Pace asked Ivey to inves­ti­gate ADOC’s con­duct to ​“ensure such behav­ior is not tol­er­at­ed and does not occur again.”

ADOC released a state­ment on the after­noon of July 29 say­ing that ADOC reg­u­la­tions con­tain ​“a dress code for all vis­i­tors includ­ing reporters cov­er­ing exe­cu­tions” that each ADOC facil­i­ty enforces ​“based on each event and cur­rent safe­ty con­di­tions.” Without admit­ting wrong­do­ing, ADOC said, ​“We apol­o­gize for any con­fu­sion or incon­ve­nience this reg­u­la­tion may have caused” and said it would include ref­er­ence to the dress code in future media advi­sories to ​“avoid this kind of situation.”

The exe­cu­tion marked the sec­ond time since 2018 that Alabama exe­cu­tion per­son­nel had sig­nif­i­cant prob­lems set­ting an IV line. In February 2018, exe­cu­tion per­son­nel unsuc­cess­ful­ly attempt­ed for two-and-a-half hours to estab­lish intra­venous access to exe­cute Doyle Ray Hamm. ADOC com­mis­sion­er Jeff Dunn ulti­mate­ly called off the exe­cu­tion say­ing 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. At a news con­fer­ence imme­di­ate­ly there­after, Dunn repeat­ed­ly assert­ed the state had fol­lowed its exe­cu­tion pro­to­col, and said ​“I wouldn’t char­ac­ter­ize what we had tonight as a problem.”

The Halls ini­tial­ly had intend­ed to be come to the prison to observe James’ last state­ment but indi­cat­ed that they did not want to stay for the exe­cu­tion itself. An ADOC offi­cial informed them they would not be per­mit­ted to leave, report­ed­ly say­ing, ​“Once you’re in, you’re in.”

Gov. Ivey refused to inter­vene in the case despite the Halls’ oppo­si­tion to the exe­cu­tion, telling reporters that she and her staff had ​“researched all the records and all the facts and there’s no rea­son … to mod­i­fy the out­come.” In plead­ings before the U.S. Supreme Court, Marshall derid­ed James’ ref­er­ence in his motion to stay his exe­cu­tion to the the Halls’ oppo­si­tion to his being put to death as ​“noth­ing more than a naked attempt to delay his lawful execution.”

Through the office of State Representative Juandalyn Givan, the Halls released a state­ment say­ing: ​“Today is a trag­ic day for our fam­i­ly. We are hav­ing to relive the hurt that this caused us many years ago. We write to inform you that we have decid­ed to not attend the exe­cu­tion of Mr. Joe Nathan James Jr. We’ve asked Governor Kay Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall to hear our voic­es and respect our wish­es. We know they decid­ed not to. … Although we knew this day would come, we hoped to have our voic­es heard through this process.”