Alabama on Friday executed James Barber for the beating death of a woman in 2001, resuming executions in the state less than a year after a series of botched procedures led to outrage and an internal review of the procedures.
Barber was convicted and sentenced to death after confessing to killing 75-year-old Dorothy Epps in 2001. Jurors voted 11-1 to recommend the death penalty.
The 64-year-old was pronounced dead at 1:56 a.m. after receiving a lethal injection at a south Alabama prison.
Barber was the first execution carried out by the state since Republican Gov. Kay Ivey announced in November she was pausing the procedures and ordering an internal “top-to-bottom review” of the state’s execution process following reports of problematic execution attempts.
Before he was put to death, Barber — who confessed to murdering Epps with a claw hammer before fleeing with her purse — told his family he loved them and apologized to the victim’s family.
“I want to tell the Epps’ family I love them. I’m sorry for what happened,” Barber said. “No words would fit how I feel.”
He also took the opportunity to tell Ivey “and the people in this room that I forgive you for what you are about to do.”
After the execution, Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement that “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,” he said.
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Last year, Alabama was one of several states “with failed or bungled executions,” according to a report by Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based nonprofit focusing on capital punishment issues.
Seven of the 20 execution attempts in 2022 were “visibly problematic” as a result of “executioner incompetence, failures to follow protocols, or defects in the protocols themselves,” according to the report.
One such case was the execution of Joe James in Alabama, which took approximately three hours to get underway, sparking national outrage.
“After 40 years, the states have proven themselves unable to carry out lethal injections without the risk that it will be botched,” Robert Dunham, the organization’s executive director, said in a statement shared with the Daily News in December.
In February, Ivey announced the state was resuming executions.
Early on Friday, Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said the two intravenous lines were connected to Barber with “three sticks in six minutes.”
With News Wire Services