As detailed in this lengthy local article, an execution was completed in the Yellowhammer State on Thursday night bringing to a conclusion a capital case raising a host of modern legal issues. Here are some of the details:
Alabama Death Row inmate Willie B. Smith III was executed by lethal injection Thursday night at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, even as the state did not dispute that Smith had significantly below-average intellectual functioning, according to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The execution date was set by the Alabama Supreme Court last month and came after several months of delay, due to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling from February saying Smith could not be executed without his personal spiritual advisor present in the room with him. That ruling came on the evening Smith was first set to be put to death, on Feb. 11.
Smith was sent to death row after being convicted of killing 22-year-old Sharma Ruth Johnson, the sister of a police detective, on Oct. 27, 1991 in Birmingham. Prosecutors said Smith abducted Johnson at gunpoint from an ATM, stole $80 from her and later took her to a cemetery, where he shot her in the back of the head.
The execution was set to happen at 6 p.m. but did not start until shortly after 9:30 p.m. because the state was waiting on a ruling from the nation’s highest court. Smith’s official time of death was 9:47 p.m.... The state allowed a personal pastor in the chamber, Pastor Robert Wiley, who appeared to pray with Smith and put hand on his leg at the beginning of the execution....
The U.S. Supreme Court denied Smith’s request for a stay of execution and petition for a writ of certiorari, or a request to review the case, at approximately 8:30 p.m. Justice Sonia Sotomayor released a statement respecting the denial of the petition. She said she shared the same concerns as a lower court judge, who “identified serious concerns with the way the ADOC has administered the Alabama Legislature’s directive to allow those on death row to choose nitrogen hypoxia as their means of execution.”...
Issues of Smith’s mental capacity have been brought up several times throughout the years-long appeals process. Smith’s lawyers, Allyson R. du Lac, Spencer Hahn and John Palombi of the Federal Defenders for the Middle District of Alabama, said in a recent court filing that Smith has an IQ in or below the 70s and should have received help under the ADA to understand a form related to the selection of an execution method. Previous appeals in Smith’s state case showed that a state expert put his IQ at 72; a defense expert placed it at 64.
In the 11th Circuit’s ruling, the court stated: “In making its determination, the district court found that: (1) Mr. Smith is a qualified individual with a disability, (2) Mr. Smith failed to demonstrate that he lacked meaningful access to the ADOC’s Election Form service, and (3) Mr. Smith did not request an accommodation from the ADOC or show that his need for an accommodation was so obvious and apparent that the ADOC should have known he required one.”...
Lawyers for the state have argued that Smith never gave any indication that he wanted to request nitrogen; but according to the defense attorneys, “(the state) clearly violated Mr. Smith’s rights when they failed to provide him with an accommodation when handing out the form in June 2018.” The filing continues, “Mr. Smith has submitted an affidavit making clear that ‘[i]f he had understood the Election Form, [he] would have signed it and handed it in in June 2018.’”
In a different matter last month, the ADOC agreed to allow Smith’s pastor to hold his hand during the lethal injection -- a settlement made to end litigation over the issue. The issue of allowing inmates’ personal spiritual advisors in the execution chamber has been a point of contention. Before April 2019 the ADOC required its Christian chaplain to be in the execution chamber. That policy was changed after a Muslim inmate, Domineque Ray, requested and was denied the presence of his imam (an Islamic spiritual advisor) when he died. He was executed anyway.
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