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MONTGOMERY, Ala., Nov. 29 (AP) — Alabama prison staff tied an inmate to a gurney in the death chamber despite a court order preventing the execution, and then executed him. He suffered multiple needle sticks, including in the neck and collarbone area while an officer held his head, lawyers wrote in a court filing.
Lawyers for Kenneth Eugene Smith claim the state violated the U.S. Constitution, multiple court orders and its own lethal injection protocol in a “botched” execution attempt earlier this month. Smith’s lawyers asked a federal judge to bar the state from trying to execute him again, saying Smith had “suffered escalating pain and suffering” the night of the failed execution.
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“The defendant’s treatment of Mr. Smith did not meet the constitutional social standards of execution. The botched execution was horrific and extremely painful for Mr. Smith,” Smith’s attorneys wrote in a complaint filed in federal court. The lawsuit accuses the state of violating the constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, seeks monetary damages and seeks to bar Alabama from “a second attempt to execute Mr. Smith.”
The Alabama Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey announced a moratorium on executions last week to review the state’s death penalty system, citing concerns by victims’ families that the death penalty would be delayed.
“We have to get things right for the sake of the victims and their families,” Ivey said.
Smith was due to be executed by lethal injection on Nov. 17 for the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of Elizabeth Doreen Sennett. Prison officials said they were unable to establish IV access within the 100-minute window between the court’s deadline to begin clearing the way and the midnight deadline, so they called off Smith’s execution that night.
Despite the 7:59 p.m. stay order issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, the state tied Smith to a gurney in the death chamber around 8 p.m. and left him there, Smith’s attorney said. He was informed of the stay and was unable to communicate with his attorney or family while he was strapped to a gurney, he said.
“Executions continued and Mr. Smith was strapped to a gurney until nearly midnight, in defiance of the Eleventh Circuit’s stay,” the attorneys wrote.
The U.S. Supreme Court quickly lifted the stay at 10:20 p.m., around which time the enforcement team began trying to establish IV access, according to court documents.
His lawyers wrote that Smith suffered multiple needlestick wounds in his arms, hands, neck and collarbone area “far beyond the extent that the executioner should have known that access to a vein was impossible.”
Smith’s attorney wrote that the team tipped Smith into an “upside-down crucifixion position” and left him there for several minutes while he was strapped to a gurney. They also believe the team injected Smith with “some sort of sedative and/or anesthetic,” the attorneys said — a violation of assurances made during court proceedings to a federal judge that they would not use intramuscular injections.
The prison team then used a large-gauge needle to try to draw a line in the blood vessel just below the collarbone, the lawyer said. When Smith did not comply with the request to turn his head, a deputy warden “put his hands around Smith’s head, turned it aside and said, Kenny, this is for your own good.”
After several attempts, the firing squad left the room, and Smith and his attorney later learned sometime before midnight that the execution had been called off.
It was the second time in the past two months that the state has failed to kill an inmate, and the third since 2018. The state completed one execution in July, but at least in part because of the start of the IV line.
The Alabama Department of Corrections questioned the cancellation of Smith’s execution as a reflection of the problem. Blaming the late court action, the department said “ADOC had only a short time to complete the agreement.”
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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