The Supreme Court's three liberal justices, led by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, rebuked the majority's early Friday decision to allow the execution of an Alabama death row inmate who raised concerns about the state's record of botched lethal injection procedures.
The high court's 6-3 Republican-appointed majority declined to block James Barber's execution, who was put to death at around 2 a.m. local time.
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"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 IV lines. Two of the men survived and reported experiencing extreme pain, including, in one case, nerve pain equivalent to electrocution," Sotomayor wrote in a dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The trio said the 8th Amendment "demands more than the State's word that this time will be any different," adding that the majority should have granted Barber's request.
Following the string of consecutive executions in which complications arose, Alabama reviewed its procedures, which were enough to sway the high court's majority and the lower courts for the execution to proceed.
"Today's decision is another troubling example of this court stymying the development of Eighth Amendment law by pushing forward executions without complete information," Sotomayor wrote.
Barber, 64, was convicted and sentenced to death for the May 2001 murder of 75-year-old Dorothy Epps after he admitted to killing her with a claw hammer at her home in Harvest, Alabama, and fleeing with her purse.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said Barber was a handyman who knew Epps through repair work and a previous relationship with her daughter. Barber was arrested just days after the murder and said that the crime was "senseless and stupid" and that he deserved to be "charged and put to death."
"Justice has been served. This morning, James Barber was put to death for the terrible crime he committed over two decades ago: the especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel murder of Dorothy Epps," Marshall said in a statement Friday morning, calling on the people of Alabama to join him in "praying for the victim's family and friends."
Barber's death marked the first execution in the state since Gov. Kay Ivey (R-AL) last fall ordered the internal review of lethal injection procedures. She announced in February that the state could once again resume executions.
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The review resulted in a change to the state's prison system as it grew its slate of medical professionals, ordered new equipment, and conducted more rehearsals of such procedures, according to Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm.
Barber's execution came after Oklahoma executed Jemaine Cannon on Thursday for the stabbing death of a Tulsa, Oklahoma, woman in 1995 following his escape from a prison work center.