Published on: Thursday, January 27, 2022

Alabama executed an inmate by lethal injection for a 1996 murder on Thursday after a divided U.S. Supreme Court sided with the state and rejected defense claims the man had an intellectual disability that cost him a chance to choose a less "torturous," yet untried, execution method (article available here).

Matthew Reeves, a 43-year-old Black man, was put to death at Holman Prison after the court lifted a lower court order that had prevented corrections workers from executing him. He was pronounced dead at 9:24 p.m. CST and he had no final words.

The Supreme Court on Thursday evening vacated a decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had ruled Wednesday that a district judge didn't abuse his discretion in ruling that the state couldn't execute Reeves by any method other than nitrogen hypoxia, which has never been used.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett said she would deny the state's request, while Justice Stephen Breyer, who just announced his retirement, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined with Justice Elena Kagan in a dissent that said the execution shouldn't occur.

A defense expert concluded Reeves reads at a first grade level and has the language competency of someone as young as 4, but the state disagreed that Reeves had a disability that would prevent him from understanding his execution options.