Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by the Supreme Court’s two other liberal justices, publicly dissented from an order that allowed Alabama to move forward with its first execution since a recent pause.
Before dawn Friday morning, Alabama executed James Barber, who was convicted of murdering a 75-year-old woman in 2001. Barber had raised concerns about the state’s lethal injection method in his emergency appeal to the high court.
“Alabama plans to kill him by lethal injection in a matter of hours, without ever allowing him discovery into what went wrong in the three prior executions and whether the State has fixed those problems. The Eighth Amendment demands more than the State’s word that this time will be different,” Sotomayor dissented.
Alabama had paused executions after officials experienced issues securing the IV lines during attempts last year. The state had canceled the executions of Alan Eugene Miller and Kenneth Eugene Smith after spending at least an hour trying to secure the needed IV access, according to court filings. Some groups have also accused officials of botching the execution of Nathan James Jr. earlier in the year.
Barber was the first to receive a lethal injection following the pause.
“If it takes hours to set Barber’s IV line, like Miller and Smith before him, the State may subject Barber to an intolerable level of pain under the Eighth Amendment,” Sotomayor wrote. “If it successfully executes him anyway, like James, it will have mooted his claim. The Eighth Amendment does not tolerate playing such games with a man’s life.”
The Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) conducted a review of its executions policies during the pause, but Sotomayor’s dissent sided with critics and Barber’s lawyers, who contended the changes did not substantively solve the past issues.
“There is no evidence in the record explaining what may have caused such difficulties. Nor is there evidence that the State has addressed what went wrong. It has replaced its IV team with new members, but revealed nothing about how those members are different from or similar to its 2022 team,” Sotomayor wrote.
ADOC Commissioner John Hamm said at a press conference that it took officials three sticks in six minutes to secure the necessary IV access.
Officials had a deadline of roughly sunrise Friday in Alabama to complete the execution. Barber lost in a lower court Wednesday, and he and the state filed opposing briefs with the justices throughout the day Thursday.
The Supreme Court handed down its order just after 1 a.m. EDT Friday. The majority did not explain its decision, but Sotomayor issued a written 11-page dissent.
Barber was pronounced dead roughly two hours later, according to the ADOC.