Alabama completes execution of Christopher Price seven weeks after delay based on dispute over execution methods
As reported in this prior post, Alabama was planning to execute Christopher Price seven weeks ago as punishment for his 1991 killing of a minister. But the execution was called off that day because his death warrant expired before the Supreme Court vacated a lower court stay. Tonight, as reported in this AP article, the execution was completed. Here are the basics:
A man convicted of using a sword and knife to kill a country preacher during a 1991 robbery was put to death by lethal injection in Alabama on Thursday, weeks after he was initially scheduled to die. Christopher Lee Price, 46, became the second inmate put to death in Alabama in two weeks. The execution was carried out at Holman prison and he was pronounced dead at 7:31 p.m.
Price, who was nearly put to death in April before an execution warrant expired, sought a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court based on a challenge to the state's method of using three drugs during lethal injections. The nation's high court, by a 5-4 vote, refused to halt the execution Thursday night. The conservative majority did not give a reason for denying the stay.
Price had asked to instead die by nitrogen hypoxia, an execution method Alabama has legally authorized but not developed. His lawyers argued the method, which kills by depleting the body of oxygen, would be less painful than lethal injection.
Price sued the state over Alabama's current practices, and the inmate's attorneys contend the state is rushing to execute him two weeks before the trial date.... In a dissent Thursday, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that the court should have delayed the execution until the trial could take place.
Justice Breyer's dissent from the denial of an execution stay, which was joined in full by Justice Ginsburg and in part by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, is available at this link.
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