Alabama Plans to Resume Executions After Series of Botches; Oklahoma Execution Scheduled for Same Day

Two of the nation’s high­est-use death penal­ty states have sched­uled exe­cu­tions for July 20, 2023. Alabama is set to exe­cute James Barber (pic­tured, left), resum­ing exe­cu­tions after Governor Kay Ivey halt­ed them in November 2022 in response to three con­sec­u­tive botched exe­cu­tions. Oklahoma plans to exe­cute Jemaine Cannon (pic­tured, right), one of the 25 peo­ple includ­ed in the two-year exe­cu­tion spree announced in 2022. 

If Alabama pro­ceeds with the exe­cu­tion of James Barber, it will be the first since the state’s string of botched exe­cu­tions in 2022. Almost exact­ly one year ago, on July 28, 2022, Alabama exe­cu­tion­ers took three hours to set an IV for Joe Nathan James. The state began the exe­cu­tion process for Alan Miller on September 26, but called off the exe­cu­tion because the exe­cu­tion team could not set the IV before the war­rant expired. A near­ly iden­ti­cal set of cir­cum­stances led to the halt­ing of Kenneth Smith’s exe­cu­tion on November 17. 

Despite Governor Ivey’s call for a ​“top-to-bot­tom review” of Alabama’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col, the only sub­stan­tive change to the process has been an exten­sion of the time allowed to per­form the exe­cu­tion. The war­rant now gives the team 30 hours – from mid­night at the start of the sched­uled exe­cu­tion date to 6 am the fol­low­ing day – to per­form the execution. 

Sarah Gregory, the grand­daugh­ter of Dorothy Epps, who was killed by Mr. Barber, says she has for­giv­en him. Ms. Gregory and Mr. Barber have writ­ten each oth­er let­ters and speak reg­u­lar­ly on the phone. When asked by jour­nal­ist Elizabeth Bruenig about Mr. Barber’s exe­cu­tion, Ms. Gregory said, ​“I don’t want it to hap­pen. I don’t want to see it done.” The process of for­giv­ing Mr. Barber has deeply affect­ed her. In 2020, she wrote to him, ​“The weight was lift­ed when I for­gave you in my heart, but your response back brought me inde­scrib­able free­dom and release. I have no anger … zero. I feel as if a thou­sand pounds were lift­ed from my soul.” She said, ​“I spent so long believ­ing in ​‘an eye for an eye’ — I’ve changed.” 

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board denied Mr. Cannon’s request for clemen­cy in June by a 3 – 2 vote. His clemen­cy peti­tion describes the severe abuse he endured as a child. Defense coun­sel alleges that Mr. Cannon’s tri­al lawyer pro­vid­ed inef­fec­tive assis­tance by pre­sent­ing the tes­ti­mo­ny of Dr. Herman Jones, who false­ly char­ac­ter­ized Mr. Cannon’s trau­ma as mak­ing him more dan­ger­ous. Dr. Jones tes­ti­fied, ​“I do believe that he rep­re­sents an unac­cept­ably high risk to the pub­lic.” When Mr. Cannon was more thor­ough­ly exam­ined by a men­tal health pro­fes­sion­al, he was diag­nosed with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a treatable condition.