Entries tagged with “Doyle Lee Hamm”
Research
Botched Executions
,Dec 07, 2022
As Lethal Injection Turns Forty, States Botch a Record Number of Executions
On December 7, 1982, Texas strapped Charles Brooks to a gurney, inserted an intravenous line into his arm, and injected a lethal dose of sodium thiopental into his veins, launching the lethal-injection era of American executions. In the precisely forty years since, U.S. states and the federal government have put 1377 prisoners to death by some version of the method. Touted as swift and painless and a more humane way to die — just as execution proponents had said nearly a century before about…
Executions
Botched Executions
,Nov 30, 2022
Alabama Drops Lethal Injection for Alan Miller, But May Attempt Execution With Nitrogen Gas
Alabama officials have agreed not to make a second attempt to execute Alan Miller by lethal injection after the state had to call off his September 22, 2022 execution because of the failure to establish an IV line. If the state seeks to execute Miller in the future, it will use nitrogen hypoxia, a method that has never been used for an execution. In the months since Miller’s execution attempt, Alabama also attempted and failed to execute Kenneth Smith. In response to the series of problems…
Executions
Botched Executions
,Nov 23, 2022
Alabama Governor Halts Executions After Latest in Series of Execution Failures
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey (pictured) has halted executions and ordered a “top-to-bottom review” of the state’s execution procedures, five days after failures by corrections personnel to establish an intravenous execution line caused Alabama to call off the November 17, 2022 execution of Kenneth Smith. The botched execution of Smith marked the third time since 2018 and the second time in two months that Alabama had called off an execution in process. In addition, on July 28, 2022, executioners…
Executions
Botched Executions
,Sep 26, 2022
Federal Court Orders Alabama to Preserve Evidence of Botched Attempted Execution of Alan Miller
A federal district court has ordered Alabama state officials to preserve evidence related to the state’s failed attempt to execute death-row prisoner Alan Miller on September 22, 2022. The botched execution attempt, Alabama’s third since 2018, came after a divided U.S. Supreme Court issued an after-hours execution-night order setting aside without opinion an injunction that had barred the state from executing Miller “by any method other than nitrogen hypoxia.” Prison officials then…
Executions
Methods of Execution
,Sep 15, 2022
Alabama Prosecutors Float, Then Retreat From, Plan to Execute Alan Miller Using Untested Nitrogen Suffocation Procedure
Alabama prosecutors have told a federal judge that the state will not execute death-row prisoner Alan Miller by nitrogen hypoxia on September 22, 2022, three days after suggesting there was a “very good chance” it would be ready to attempt the first-ever execution by that method. In a sworn affidavit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama on September 15, 2022, Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm contradicted that assertion, stating “The…
Executions
Botched Executions
,Aug 08, 2022
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…
Executions
Botched Executions
,Nov 29, 2021
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…
Executions
Jun 01, 2018
Federal Judge Orders Alabama to Disclose Execution Records
A federal district court has ordered the Alabama Department of Corrections to release its lethal-injection protocol and unseal transcripts and pleadings related to the failed execution of Doyle Hamm. In a May 30, 2018, order, Judge Karon Owen Bowdre, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama said “how Alabama carries out its executions” is “a matter of great public concern,” and ruled that the public’s “common law right of access to the sealed records…
Executions
Mar 30, 2018
Confidential Settlement Leaves Questions About Alabama Execution Process Unanswered
One month after Alabama called off its two-and-a-half hour attempted execution of Doyle Hamm, the state reached a confidential settlement agreement in which it agreed not to seek another execution date and Hamm’s attorney dismissed his client’s pending civil-rights lawsuit. In a March 27, 2018 press release, Columbia University law professor Bernard Harcourt, who has represented Hamm for 28 years, said the settlement was reached “after lengthy, fruitful discussions with the Alabama Attorney…
Issues
Executions Overview
,Feb 23, 2018
Three Controversial Executions Turn Into A Commutation, An Execution, and an Execution Failure
Three states — Alabama, Florida, and Texas — prepared to carry out controversial executions on Thursday, February 22, all scheduled for 7 PM Eastern time, but by the end of the night, two had been halted. Less than an hour before his scheduled execution, and after having said a final good-bye to his anguished father, Texas death-row prisoner Thomas “Bart” Whitaker (pictured, left) learned that Governor Greg Abbott had commuted his death sentence to life in prison. Minutes later, Florida executed…
Issues
Executions Overview
,Dec 26, 2017
Alabama Cancels Cancer Surgery, Sets Execution Date for Terminally Ill Prisoner
Alabama has set an execution date for Doyle Lee Hamm (pictured), a 60-year-old man with terminal cranial and lymphatic cancer that his lawyer says has rendered his veins unusable for lethal injection. Hamm has received radiation and chemotherapy, and was scheduled for surgery to remove a cancerous lesion on December 13, but Alabama prison officials cancelled the surgery and instead informed Hamm that a death warrant had been issued scheduling his execution for February 22, 2018. In September…
Issues
Jul 26, 2016
Defendant Seeks Supreme Court Review of Prosecutorial Ghostwriting, A Widespread Practice in Capital Cases
Doyle Lee Hamm (pictured), an Alabama death row prisoner, has asked the United States Supreme Court to consider his case after Alabama’s state and federal appellate courts upheld an order in which the trial court rejected his appeal by adopting word-for-word an 89-page order written by the state attorney general’s office. In a process The Marshall Project’s Andrew Cohen described as “a sham,” the court dismissed Hamm’s appeal one business day after receiving the prosecution’s proposed order…