Entries tagged with “Doyle Lee Hamm”

Facts & Research

History of the Death Penalty

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Botched Executions

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Lethal Injection

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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

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Lethal Injection

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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…

Executions

Botched Executions

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Lethal Injection

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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…

Executions

Botched Executions

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Lethal Injection

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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

Botched Executions

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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…

Executions

Lethal Injection

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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…

Executions

Lethal Injection

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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…

Policy Issues

Arbitrariness

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Executions Overview

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Lethal Injection

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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…

Policy Issues

Arbitrariness

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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…