The Alabama attorney general argued an inmate did not suffer unconstitutionally during an aborted lethal injection last year. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall's office asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Kenneth Eugene Smith seeking to prevent the state from making a second attempt to put him to death. Smith was scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection on Nov. 17 for the 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett. Prison officials said they called off Smith's execution after they were unable to establish IV access. The state argued that difficulty achieving intravenous access does not equate to cruel and unusual punishment
"Allegations of pain related to difficulty achieving intravenous access do not amount to cruel and unusual punishment," lawyers for the state wrote in the court filing. The failed execution was the second instance that year of Alabama being unable to carry out an execution because of difficulties connecting intravenous access and its third since 2018.
The problems led to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey seeking a pause in executions to conduct a "top-to-bottom" review of the state's capital punishment system. The Alabama Supreme Court, at Ivey's request, abolished the previous one-day timeframe to carry out a death sentence. Instead, the governor will set a window of time for the execution to be carried out. The prison system had blamed last-minute legal filings — combined with a midnight deadline to get the execution started — as a reason for calling off Smith's execution.
Smith's lawyers argued in the court filing that Smith was "subjected to ever-escalating levels of pain and torture" on the night of the "botched" execution. They argued prison staff strapped Smith to a death chamber gurney, despite a court order in place at the time blocking the execution from going forward, and later subjected him to numerous needle jabs, including in the neck and collarbone region
