The Supreme Court allowed the execution of 64-year-old James Barber, a death row inmate in Alabama, prompting a dissent from the court's liberal justices.
Barber's was the first execution carried out in Alabama this year after the state temporarily halted executions in November due to issues securing the necessary IV access during three lethal injections.
Barber was convicted in 2003 of beating Dorothy Epps, 75, to death with a claw hammer and his fists.
"This court's decision denying Barber's request for a stay allows Alabama to experiment again with a human life," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a harsh dissenting opinion joined by liberal colleagues Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
"Just last year in Alabama, in three consecutive executions by lethal injection, prison officials spent multiple hours digging for prisoners' veins in an attempt to set I.V. lines," she wrote. "Two of the men survived and reported experiencing extreme pain, including, in one case, nerve pain equivalent to electrocution."
Barber's request for additional information was not met by officials, she wrote.
"The state has not only failed publicly to account for what went wrong," Sotomayor wrote, "but also actively obstructed Barber's attempts to find out what happened."
The decision, she added, "is another troubling example of this court stymying the development of Eighth Amendment law by pushing forward executions without complete information."
"This court has so prioritized expeditious executions that it has disregarded well-reasoned lower court conclusions, preventing both the meaningful airing of prisoners' challenges and the development of Eighth Amendment law."
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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