United States: an execution by injection is canceled because the veins of the condemned cannot be seen

The US state of Alabama planned to execute Kenneth Smith, 57, on Thursday night, but had to give up. The authorities did not find a suitable vein to inject the products, resulting in the death of the convicted person, reports the US press agency AP.

Corrections official John Hamm said state officials tried for an hour to put in an IV, looking for a visible vein in various parts of the body, before stopping the execution, as the authorization to execute ended at midnight.

“We cancel the execution”

Les avocats de Kenneth Smith avaienté d’obtenir mercredi un sursis pour leur client auprès de la Cour suprême des États-Unis, mais la haute jurisdiction, où les juges conservateurs sont majoritaires, a rejeté leur recours, comme ceux de trois autres détenus exécutés this week. The death sentence, however, expired on Thursday at midnight.

“At approximately 11:21 p.m. we called off the execution” because it was deemed there was insufficient time to carry out the execution before that order expired, corrections officer John Hamm said. The state must now go back to court to seek a new execution date, the AP notes.

The outlet recalls that this execution is the second since September that Alabama must cancel due to difficulties in performing the lethal injection.

An already controversial execution

In 1988, a heavily indebted man hired him and another hitman to shoot his wife in a staged robbery to collect insurance. Despite the husband’s suicide, the police had tracked down the two murderers.

Kenneth Smith was sentenced to death for the first time, but the trial was quashed on appeal. At his second trial in 1996, he was again convicted of murder, but jurors were split on the sentence: 11 of 12 had recommended a life sentence.

Ignoring his advice, a judge imposed the death penalty, which was legal at the time but is now prohibited throughout the United States.

Sixteen convicts have been executed since the beginning of the year in the United States, including two in Alabama, according to the Death Penalty Information Center’s count.