A death row prisoner was put through "three hours of pain" in what human rights campaigners are calling the longest execution of all time. Nathan James Jr was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the murder of Faith Hall in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1994.
The execution was scheduled to take place at 6pm on July 28 but reportedly didn't go ahead until 9pm, with the 49-year-old pronounced dead at 9.27pm. Officials at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore had initially said the execution went according to plan, how the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) later admitted that there had been problems finding the intravenous line.
According to the Mirror, an autopsy discovered that James had several puncture wounds and needle cuts as he "struggled and had to be sedated". Human rights organisation Reprieve US later stated that the report showed that the lethal injection had been administered hours before members of the media were allowed in at roughly 9.00pm.
