Washington, United States

Alabama called off a scheduled execution of a man convicted in the 1998 murder-for-hire murder of a preacher’s wife on Thursday after the state authorities faced trouble finding a suitable vein to inject the lethal drugs.

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NBC News reported that the prison staff kept trying to connect the two required intravenous lines connected to Kenneth Eugene Smith, but failed. Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm told they got one line established but were not able to get the second after trying several locations on Smith’s body. “We went to our protocol of a central line. We were not able to have time to complete that, so we called off the execution,” Hamm said.

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Earlier, the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals had ordered a stay on Smith’s execution, after he filed an appeal before the court. However, the stay was later dismissed by the US Supreme Court at about 10:20 p.m. The state reached the conclusion an hour later that the lethal drug won’t be injected that evening, due to difficulties with establishing an IV.

Now, the state will have to seek a new execution date from the court as the death warrant has expired at Thursday midnight.  Idaho Press reported that Smith was one of the two persons convicted of killing Elizabeth Sennett in return for a $1000 prize proffered to him by Elizabeth’s husband. Reportedly, Elizabeth’s spouse was buried in deep debt and wanted to bag the hefty insurance money.

Alabama governor Kay Ivey expressed his disappointment by suggesting that Smith’s last-minute appeals had helped him avert the execution process.

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In September too, the state had to call off the execution of Alan Miller because of the same issue. Earlier, the execution of Joe Nathan James had taken several hours to get completed because of problems faced while establishing an IV line.

(With inputs from agencies)

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