Family Sues Alabama Over ​‘Longest Known Execution in U.S. History’

On May 3, 2023, the fam­i­ly of Joe Nathan James (pic­tured) sued the state of Alabama for the pain and suf­fer­ing it caused dur­ing his three-hour-long lethal injec­tion in 2022. It is believed to be the longest known exe­cu­tion in U.S. his­to­ry. The suit asserts that ​“the exe­cu­tion team failed to exe­cute Mr. James in a man­ner that com­ports with the U.S. Constitution, the Alabama Constitution, and applic­a­ble state law.” 

Normally, the first part of the process is sup­posed to take min­utes, but the team in James’ exe­cu­tion took hours to set the intra­venous lines, repeat­ed­ly punc­tur­ing him in the process, in what the suit claims was a vio­la­tion of his 8^th amend­ment rights against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. The team of pro-bono attor­neys from Arnold & Porter rep­re­sent­ing the fam­i­ly stat­ed: ​“We’re seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for his fam­i­ly because that’s the avail­able rem­e­dy, but real­ly, our goal in fil­ing this law­suit and work­ing on behalf of Mr. James’ fam­i­ly is to invite some trans­paren­cy, to shed some light for Alabama.”

The law­suit also alleges that the lethal injec­tion devi­at­ed from the estab­lished exe­cu­tion pro­to­col because James was already uncon­scious dur­ing the read­ing of the death war­rant and unable to speak his last words.The suit states: ​“Mr. James was deprived of his rights to be men­tal­ly present for the read­ing of the death war­rant, to pro­vide last words, and to be cog­nizant of his pun­ish­ment before the lethal drugs were administered.”

The suit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, points to oth­er failed exe­cu­tion attempts by Alabama, which result­ed in a review of the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. ​“Each of the indi­vid­u­als that Alabama failed to exe­cute report­ed expe­ri­enc­ing extreme pain from failed IV access attempts, and each of these indi­vid­u­als endured IV access attempts for less time than Mr. James,” the suit says. ​“The only rea­son that the pub­lic knows what hap­pened to these indi­vid­u­als is because they sur­vived efforts to execute them.”