Alabama state officials called off the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith Thursday night due to not being able to find a suitable vein to inject lethal drugs.
According to The Associated Press, Smith was convicted and incarcerated for murder for hire in the 1988 killing of Elizabeth Sennett. Prosecutors said that Sennett’s husband had hired two men and paid them $1,000 each to kill her in order to collect on insurance.
After the execution was called off, Smith was returned to his prison cell on death row and the state will need to go to court to set a new execution date, the AP reported.
The New York Times reported that this is the second execution in the last couple of months that Alabama had to call off due to complications with the injection.
CNN reported that Smith’s execution was originally scheduled for 6 p.m. on Thursday night. Officials had a midnight deadline before his death warrant would expire.
By 11:20 p.m., officials had not successfully found a suitable vein for the injection and called off the execution because they would not be able to complete it before midnight.
Smith was convicted in Alabama before 2017 — the year that repealed judicial override. CNN said, “When Smith was sentenced, a jury voted 11-1 for a life sentence that was overridden by the trial judge who opted instead for the death penalty, a practice the state has since repealed.”
Smith’s attorneys had requested a stay of execution, which was denied on Wednesday.
The Associated Press reported that John Forrest Parker, who was convicted along with Smith for the murder of Sennett, was executed in 2010. The news outlet said, “Smith was initially convicted in 1989, and a jury voted 10-2 to recommend a death sentence, which a judge imposed. His conviction was overturned on appeal in 1992. He was retried and convicted again in 1996. The jury recommended a life sentence by a vote of 11-1, but a judge overrode the recommendation and sentenced Smith to death.”
Smith’s execution date was kept in place because the Alabama law change around judicial override was not retroactive.
CBS News reported, “The Equal Justice Initiative, an Alabama-based nonprofit that advocates for inmates, said that Smith stands to become the first state prisoner sentenced by judicial override to be executed since the practice was abolished.”
Smith’s new execution date has not been set.