The governor of Alabama has decided to go ahead and plan for the execution of a man who killed his girlfriend decades ago, despite the victim’s family’s wishes to spare him.
Faith Hall, then 26-year-old, was fatally shot by her former boyfriend Joe Nathan James Jr nearly three decades ago in Birmingham. Now Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has said that she won’t call off the scheduled execution by lethal injection of James Jr at a south Alabama prison on Thursday evening.
He was convicted and given a death sentence for killing his former girlfriend, Hall.
Hall’s children — who were just three and six when she was killed – along with Hall’s brother have appealed to the authorities to spare their mother’s killer’s life and change the sentence to life imprisonment without parole.
However, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has urged the governor to proceed with the execution plans and ensure that “justice is done.”
It was reported that unless a judge or the governor intervenes, the 49-year-old James Jr will die by lethal injection on Thursday evening.
One of the two daughters of Hall, Terryln Hall told Associated Press that “we thought about it and prayed about it, and we found it in ourselves to forgive him for what he did. We really wish there was something that we could do to stop it.”
She said: “I know it may sound crazy. Like, you really want this man to live? But ... I just feel like we can’t play God. We can’t take a life. And it’s not going to bring my mom back.”
Meanwhile, the governor said on Wednesday that “my staff and I have researched all the records and all the facts and there’s no reason to change the procedure or modify the outcome. The execution will go forward”.
In fact, the Hall family has relayed the request for clemency for James Jr through State representative Juandalynn Givan. “They are simply saying our wish as the family is for him to die in the penal system of the Alabama correctional facility. That’s how we want him to suffer and we want to see that suffering for the rest of our lives,” Mr Givan said on Wednesday.
