Sister Calls for Investigation Into Alabama’s Botched Execution of Joe James

The sis­ter of death-row pris­on­er Joe Nathan James Jr. has called for an inves­ti­ga­tion into his botched exe­cu­tion fol­low­ing a state­ment by an Alabama Department of Correction’s spokesper­son that ADOC could not con­firm that James was ful­ly con­scious when he was executed. 

James was exe­cut­ed on July 28, 2022 fol­low­ing an ini­tial­ly unex­plained three-hour delay dur­ing which ADOC exe­cu­tion per­son­nel repeat­ed­ly failed to estab­lish an intra­venous line for the lethal injec­tion. When reporters were final­ly admit­ted to the obser­va­tion room and ADOC offi­cials opened the cur­tain to the exe­cu­tion cham­ber, James was motion­less and non-respon­sive on the gur­ney with his eyes shut. James did not respond in any way when an exe­cu­tion team mem­ber asked him whether he had any last statement.

“James’ eyes were not open at the begin­ning of the exe­cu­tion, and he appeared motion­less, save for his breath­ing,” Lee Hedgepeth, a media wit­ness from Birmingham tele­vi­sion sta­tion CBS42 wrote.

In a writ­ten state­ment to the Montgomery Advertiser, James’ sis­ter, Yvette Craig said ​“Only the ADOC employ­ees know what occurred dur­ing those three hours” in which the exe­cu­tion was delayed. ​“At the very least,” she wrote, ADOC Commissioner John Hamm ​“should have let the exe­cu­tion war­rant expire and revis­it the method of exe­cu­tion.” The media’s obser­va­tions of James’ con­di­tion when the cur­tain was opened ​“war­rants an inves­ti­ga­tion of Commissioner John Hamm, Governor Kay Ivey, and Attorney General Steve Marshall’s actions lead­ing up to the exe­cu­tion of my broth­er,” she said.

James’ exe­cu­tion was car­ried out over the objec­tion of the vic­tims’ fam­i­ly, who had unsuc­cess­ful­ly asked Governor Kay Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall to inter­vene to stop it from tak­ing place. After the exe­cu­tion, Hamm deflect­ed ques­tions about the delay, say­ing only that the exe­cu­tion team com­plied with the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col and that the time tak­en was nec­es­sary to ensure that the court’s order to exe­cute James was ​“car­ried out correctly.” 

The next day, ADOC pub­lic infor­ma­tion offi­cer Kelly Betts oblique­ly sug­gest­ed the delay was caused by the exe­cu­tion team’s inabil­i­ty to set an IV line. In a state­ment issued on July 29, she again assert­ed that ​“ADOC’s exe­cu­tion team strict­ly fol­lowed the estab­lished pro­to­col” in an effort to avoid hav­ing to car­ry out a cut-down pro­ce­dure to place an IV in James’ groin, and that ​“with ade­quate time, intra­venous access was established.” 

Later in the day, Betts con­ced­ed that the exe­cu­tion team had expe­ri­enced dif­fi­cul­ties in plac­ing the IV line. She con­tin­ued to pro­vide eva­sive answers to media inquiries about James’ phys­i­cal and men­tal con­di­tion when the cur­tain opened, respond­ing to Montgomery Advertiser reporter Evan Mealins’ ques­tion about whether James was ful­ly con­scious at the time of the exe­cu­tion by stat­ing that he had not been sedat­ed. When asked again if James had been ful­ly con­scious, Betts then replied, ​“I can­not confirm that.” 

While the unex­plained delay was tak­ing place, prison offi­cials sub­ject­ed two female reporters to cloth­ing exam­i­na­tions, deem­ing the skirt a reporter from AL​.com had worn when cov­er­ing pri­or exe­cu­tions ​“too short” to gain admis­sion to the prison. After the reporter found oth­er cloth­ing to wear, Betts fur­ther delayed media entry into the facil­i­ty by then telling her that she could not wear open-toed shoes. Betts also sub­ject­ed a vet­er­an female Associated Press reporter to a clothing inspection.

Reporters were then tak­en to the prison in an ADOC trans­port van, but left in the van for near­ly 2 1/​2 hours with­out any expla­na­tion for this addi­tion­al delay. The media wit­ness­es were ulti­mate­ly seat­ed in the exe­cu­tion view­ing room at 8:57 p.m. and the cur­tain to the exe­cu­tion cham­ber was raised at 9:02 p.m.

Multiple reporters not­ed that James’ eyes were closed and he lay motion­less on the gur­ney. He was non-respon­sive when an exe­cu­tion team mem­ber asked him if he had a final state­ment. At 9:04 offi­cials began admin­is­ter­ing the exe­cu­tion drugs through an IV that was already in place in James’ left arm when the cur­tain was raised. Reporters indi­cat­ed that ​“James blinked and his eyes flut­tered briefly” after the drugs were inject­ed. He was pro­nounced dead at 9:27 p.m.

In an inter­view with the Montgomery Advertiser, Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham said, ​“If the depart­ment does not know whether a pris­on­er is con­scious or uncon­scious at the time of the exe­cu­tion, then they are incom­pe­tent to car­ry an exe­cu­tion out. If the depart­ment does know but will not say, then they can­not be trust­ed.” Dunham said that instances such as ADOC’s ​“ver­bal gym­nas­tics and refusal to be forth­com­ing … under­mine pub­lic con­fi­dence in the trust­wor­thi­ness of the states to car­ry out the death penal­ty fair­ly and reliably.”

James was first sen­tenced to death in 1996 for the mur­der of Faith Hill, whom he had pre­vi­ous­ly dat­ed. As his sched­uled exe­cu­tion date approached, Hill’s fam­i­ly mem­bers tried in vain to stop the execution. 

“We hoped the state wouldn’t take a life sim­ply because a life was tak­en and we have for­giv­en Mr. Joe Nathan James Jr. for his atroc­i­ties toward our fam­i­ly,” the fam­i­ly wrote in a state­ment released through Alabama State Representative Juandalynn Givan. ​“Although we knew this day would come, we hoped to have our voic­es heard through this process. … 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.”

Craig accused Ivey and Marshall of will­ful­ly ignor­ing the Halls’ wish­es. ​“Of course, they uni­lat­er­al­ly decid­ed, against the wish­es of the victim’s fam­i­ly, to exe­cute the sec­ond Black man dur­ing this elec­tion year,” she wrote. ​“They didn’t care about the wish­es of the victim’s fam­i­ly because the victim’s fam­i­ly are not their constituents.”

James’ exe­cu­tion is the third Alabama has botched since December 2016 and the sec­ond in which Alabama exe­cu­tion per­son­nel had sig­nif­i­cant prob­lems set­ting an IV line. On December 8, 2016, Ronald ​“Bert” Smith heaved, gasped and coughed while strug­gling for breath for 13 min­utes after the lethal drugs were admin­is­tered. Death was pro­nounced 34 min­utes after the exe­cu­tion began. In February 2018, exe­cu­tion­ers unsuc­cess­ful­ly attempt­ed for two-and-a-half hours to estab­lish intra­venous access to exe­cute Doyle Ray Hamm. Then-ADOC com­mis­sion­er Jeff Dunn ulti­mate­ly called off the exe­cu­tion say­ing prison per­son­nel did not have ​“suf­fi­cient time” to find a suit­able vein 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.”