The plates here usually say “Heart of Dixie,” just in case you’ve forgotten that Montgomery was the first capital of the Confederacy. But the state’s treatment of prisoners is heartless.
Earlier this month Alabama botched the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith, the third inmate it has tried unsuccessfully to put to death since 2018.¹ In each case an attempted lethal injection went horrifically awry.
The state’s latest mangled execution was so cruel and incompetent it caused an outcry. Smith was strapped to a gurney for hours as officials tried to insert the two intravenous lines needed for the lethal drugs used by Alabama.