This undated picture supplied by the Alabama Department of Corrections exhibits James Barber. A federal appeals court docket on Wednesday, July 19, 2023, refused to cease Barber’s upcoming execution in Alabama, rejecting his argument that the state has a historical past of botched deadly injections.

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This undated picture supplied by the Alabama Department of Corrections exhibits James Barber. A federal appeals court docket on Wednesday, July 19, 2023, refused to cease Barber’s upcoming execution in Alabama, rejecting his argument that the state has a historical past of botched deadly injections.

AP

ATMORE, Ala. — Alabama executed a person on Friday for the 2001 beating demise of a lady because the state resumed deadly injections after two failed executions prompted the state to conduct an inside assessment.

James Barber, 64, was pronounced useless at 1:56 a.m. after receiving a deadly injection at a south Alabama jail.

Barber was convicted and sentenced to demise for the 2001 beating demise of 75-year-old Dorothy Epps. Prosecutors mentioned Barber, a handyman, confessed to killing Epps with a claw hammer and fleeing together with her purse. Jurors voted 11-1 to suggest a demise sentence, which a choose imposed.

Before he was put to demise, Barber informed his household he liked them and apologized to Epps’ household.

“I want to tell the Epps’ family I love them. I’m sorry for what happened,” Barber mentioned. “No words would fit how I feel.”

Barber mentioned he wished to inform the governor “and the people in this room that I forgive you for what you are about to do.”

It was the primary execution carried out in Alabama this yr after the state halted executions final fall. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey introduced a pause on executions in November to conduct an inside assessment of procedures.

The transfer got here after the state halted two deadly injections due to difficulties inserting IVs into the condemned males’s veins. Advocacy teams claimed a 3rd execution, carried out after a delay due to IV issues, was botched, a claim the state has disputed.

Barber’s attorneys unsuccessfully requested the courts to dam the execution, saying the state has a sample of failing “to carry out a lethal injection execution in a constitutional manner.”

The Supreme Court denied Barber’s request for a keep with out remark. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent from the choice that was joined by Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. She mentioned the court docket was permitting “Alabama to experiment again with a human life.”

“The Eighth Amendment demands more than the State’s word that this time will be different. The Court should not allow Alabama to test the efficacy of its internal review by using Barber as its ‘guinea pig,'” Sotomayor wrote.

After his final phrases, Barber spoke with a non secular adviser who accompanied him into the demise chamber. As the medication had been administered, Barber’s eyes closed and his stomach pulsed a number of instances. His respiratory slowed till it was not seen.

Much of of the last-minute authorized battle centered on Alabama’s capacity to acquire intravenous entry in previous executions. Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm mentioned the 2 intravenous strains had been linked to Barber with “three sticks in six minutes.”

“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,” Attorney General Steve Marshall mentioned in a press release.