On three occasions in the past four months, Alabama’s department of corrections has bungled its lethal injections procedure.
At 7.57pm on 17 November, prison guards entered the “death cell” at Holman correctional facility in Atmore, south Alabama, where Kenneth Smith was awaiting execution by lethal injection for the 1988 murder-for-hire of a preacher’s wife.
The guards put Smith in handcuffs and leg irons, then led him to the execution chamber and strapped him tightly to the gurney. As he lay there, he prepared himself for imminent death.
