A convicted murderer is to be put to death in Alabama on Thursday in the first use of lethal injection in the southern US state since a series of botched executions last year.
James Barber, 54, is one of two death row inmates scheduled to die in the United States on Thursday.
Barber, a handyman, was convicted in 2003 of beating 75-year-old Dorothy Epps to death with a hammer during a 2001 robbery.
He is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, during a 30-hour time period between 12:01 am Central Time (0501 GMT) Thursday and 6:00 am Central Time (1100 GMT) Friday.
The second inmate, Jemaine Cannon, 51, is to be executed by lethal injection in the western state of Oklahoma for the 1995 murder of Sharonda Clark, 20, a mother of two children.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey issued a temporary moratorium on executions last year after problems with lethal injections.
In one case, the July 28, 2022 execution of convicted murderer Joe James Jr., it took three hours to set an intravenous line.
Two other execution attempts in Alabama were halted because of problems setting IV lines.
Barber will be the first inmate put to death in Alabama since the moratorium on executions was lifted after the completion of a review of procedures in February.
His attorneys have filed last-minute appeals seeking to halt the execution given the state’s past history of botched procedures.
Cannon, the Oklahoma inmate, is scheduled to be executed at 10:00 am Central Time (1500 GMT) on Thursday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, according to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.
There have been 13 executions in the United States so far this year.
