Authorities in the US state of Alabama executed a man convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend on Thursday night, despite opposition from the victim’s family.
Joe Nathan James, a 49-year-old African American, received a lethal injection in a penitentiary in this rural state in the southern United States. He was pronounced dead at 9:27 p.m. (local time).
He was sentenced to death for having killed, in 1994, Faith Hall, a 26-year-old girl whom he had harassed since the end of a short relationship.
“‘An eye for an eye’ is not a good life principle”
Since Alabama set a date for his execution, his victim’s daughters, who were three and six years old at the time of the tragedy, pleaded for him to be spared.
“Taking her life will not bring Faith back, it will not allow us to turn the page,” Terryln Hall said. on CBS channel 42. “We shouldn’t take ourselves for God,” her sister Toni Hall added. “‘An eye for an eye’ is not a good life principle.”
After the refusal of the gouverneure Kay Ivey d’intervenir, ces declarations avaient été mises en avant par l’avocat de Joe Nathan James dans an urgent appeal to the Cour suprême des Etats-Unis pour lui demander de suspendre l’exécution, in vain.
The eighth convict executed in 2022 in the United States
The Hall sisters “were too young at the time of the trial for their opinion to be taken into account, but the victims and their families (…) deserve to be heard on the question of the sentence ultimately withheld against the criminals,” he had written. James Ransom on his appeal, which raises other procedural issues.
This Thursday, after the execution, the attorney general of Alabama, Steve Marshall, said that “justice (had) been done”.
“Joe James was executed for the heinous act he committed nearly three decades ago: the cold-blooded murder of a young mother, Faith Hall,” he said in a statement.
He is the eighth convicted person executed since the beginning of the year in the United States.
Source: BFM TV
