Alabama man's execution was botched, advocacy group alleges

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Alabama corrections officials apparently botched an inmate's execution last month, an anti-death penalty group alleges, citing the length of time that passed before the prisoner received the lethal injection and a private autopsy indicating his arm may have been cut to find a vein.

Joe Nathan James Jr. was put to death July 28 at an Alabama prison for the 1994 shooting death of his former girlfriend. The execution was carried out more than three hours after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request for a stay.

“Subjecting a prisoner to three hours of pain and suffering is the definition of cruel and unusual punishment,” Maya Foa, director of Reprieve US Forensic Justice Initiative, a human rights group that opposes the death penalty, said in a statement. “States cannot continue to pretend that the abhorrent practice of lethal injection is in any way humane.”

The Alabama Department of Forensic Science declined a request to release the state's autopsy of James, citing an ongoing review that happens after every execution. Officials have not responded to requests for comment on the private autopsy, which was first reported by The Atlantic.

At the time of the execution, Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm told reporters that “nothing out of the ordinary” happened. Hamm said he wasn't aware of the prisoner fighting or resisting officers. The state later acknowledged that the execution was delayed because of difficulties establishing an intravenous line, but did not specify how long it took.

Dr. Joel Zivot, a professor of anesthesiology at Emory University and an expert on lethal injection who witnessed the private autopsy, said it looked like there were numerous attempts to connect a line.

Zivot said he saw “multiple puncture sites on both arms” and two perpendicular incisions, each about 3 to 4 centimeters (1 to 1.5 inches) in length, in the middle of the arm, which he said indicated that officials had attempted to perform a “cutdown,” a procedure in which the skin is opened to allow a visual search for a vein. He said the cutdown is an old-style medical intervention rarely performed in modern medical settings, and that it would be painful without anesthesia. He also said he saw evidence of intramuscular injections not in the vicinity of a vein.

The Alabama Department of Corrections prison system issued a written statement in which it noted that “protocol states that if the veins are such that intravenous access cannot be provided, the team will perform a central line procedure,” which involves placing a catheter in a large vein. “Fortunately, this was not necessary and with adequate time, intravenous access was established,” the statement said.

Alabama does not allow witnesses from news outlets to watch the preparations for a lethal injection. They get their first glimpse of the execution chamber when an inmate is already strapped to the gurney with the IV line connected.

A reporter for The Associated Press who attended the execution observed that James did not respond when the warden asked if he had final words. His eyes remained closed except for briefly fluttering at one point early in the procedure.

Lawyers who spoke with James by telephone said they were disturbed by his reported lack of movements and raised questions about what happened before the lethal injection. Hamm said James was not sedated.

“That wasn’t the Joe that I knew. He always had something to say. He always wanted to be in control," said James Ranson, the attorney who helped James file his appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court. "The fact that he did not give any sort of reaction ... and that he didn’t open his eyes, tells me something was up,” Ranson said.

John Palombi, a federal defender who spoke with James twice on the day of his execution, said James, “was certainly alert" earlier in the day.

The Atlantic quoted a friend of James as saying that the inmate had planned to make a final statement.

Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a national nonprofit organization that analyzes issues concerning capital punishment, said the delay between the Supreme Court’s go-ahead and the execution, combined with the autopsy, points to a "botched execution, and it is among the worst botches in the modern history of the U.S. death penalty.”

“This execution is Exhibit A as to why execution secrecy laws are intolerable," Dunham wrote in an email to the AP. “The public is entitled to know what went on here — and what goes on in all Alabama executions — from the instant the execution team begins the process of physically preparing the prisoner for the lethal injection until the moment the prisoner dies.”

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Sen. Graham challenges 2020 Georgia election probe subpoena

ATLANTA -- U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham is challenging a subpoena to testify before a special grand jury that's investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others broke any laws when they tried to overturn Joe Biden's win in Georgia.

Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, received a subpoena that was issued on July 26 and orders him to appear before the special grand jury to testify on Aug. 23, his lawyers said in a court filing. Graham is seeking to have the challenge to the subpoena heard in federal court in Atlanta rather than before the Fulton County Superior Court judge who’s overseeing the special grand jury.

The senator is one of the Trump allies who Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis wants to question as part of her investigation into what she alleges was “a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”

Graham had said repeatedly that he would fight the subpoena once he received it, which happened last week, according to his lawyers. He has denied meddling in Georgia's election.

In a court filing last month, Willis, a Democrat, wrote that Graham made at least two telephone calls to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and members of his staff in the weeks after Trump’s loss to Biden, asking about reexamining certain absentee ballots “to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump.”

When he made those calls, Graham “was engaged in quintessentially legislative factfinding — both to help him form election-related legislation, including in his role as then-Chair of the Judiciary Committee, and to help inform his vote to certify the election,” his lawyers wrote in a court filing on Friday.

Graham's lawyers cite a provision of the U.S. Constitution that they say “provides absolute protection against inquiry into Senator Graham's legislative acts.” They also argue “sovereign immunity" prevents a local prosecutor from summoning a U.S. senator “to face a state ad hoc investigatory body.” And they assert that Willis has failed to demonstrate “the ‘extraordinary circumstances’ necessary to order a high-ranking federal official to testify.”

Willis' office will respond in court and expects Graham to testify before the special grand jury, spokesperson Jeff DiSantis said.

Given that Graham has been summoned to testify on Aug. 23, his lawyers asked for expedited consideration of his motion to quash. The judge granted that request, setting a hearing for Aug. 10.

Graham had previously filed a federal court challenge in South Carolina to try to stop Willis' efforts to compel him to testify. Before a judge there could hold a hearing, he withdrew that case and agreed to file any challenges to a subpoena in the investigation in either state superior court or federal court in Georgia, according to a court filing.

U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, a Georgia Republican, filed a federal court challenge similar to Graham's after he received a subpoena to testify before the special grand jury. After hearing arguments from his lawyers and from Willis' office, a federal judge last week declined to quash his subpoena.

U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May, who is also assigned to hear Graham's challenge, sent the matter back to Fulton County Superior Court, saying that there are at least some questions that Hice may be compelled to answer. If disagreements arise over whether Hice is protected under federal law from answering certain questions, he can bring those issues back to her to settle, she said.

Willis has confirmed that the investigation’s scope includes a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Raffensperger during which Trump urged Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss in the state.

“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said during that call.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has repeatedly described his call to Raffensperger as “perfect.”

Willis is also interested in false allegations of election fraud made by former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and others during Georgia legislative committee meetings in December 2020. Jacki Pick Deason, a Dallas-based lawyer and podcaster, spoke at one of those meetings on Dec. 3, 2020.

Willis is trying to compel Deason's testimony. Because she lives outside Georgia, Willis has to use a process that involves getting a judge in Texas to order her to appear. A judge in New York has already ordered Giuliani to testify next week.

In a court filing in Texas last week, Deason argued that she shouldn't be ordered to testify. She cited alleged flaws with the paperwork Willis filed seeking her testimony, argued that a summons to appear before a Georgia special grand jury is not recognized in Texas and said that the demand for her appearance is based on a false assertion that she was a lawyer for the Trump campaign. She also said that it would be an undue burden for her to travel to Atlanta on days when the special grand jury is meeting in August because of professional obligations and other commitments.

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Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C., and Jamie Stengle and Jake Bleiberg in Dallas contributed to this report.

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No bond for accused rapist of girl who traveled for abortion

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A man accused of raping and impregnating a 9-year-old Ohio girl who traveled to Indiana for an abortion was ordered held without bond Thursday by a judge who cited overwhelming evidence and the fact that he apparently is living in the U.S. illegally.

Gerson Fuentes, 27, faces two counts of raping the girl, who turned 10 before having the abortion in a case that has become a flashpoint in the national discussion about access to the procedure since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. He has pleaded not guilty.

If convicted, Fuentes, who is from Guatemala, faces the possibility of life in prison with no chance of parole. That penalty and “not having any ties to this community that can be proved legally makes it a substantial flight risk,” Franklin County Judge Julie Lynch said after a 35-minute hearing.

The girl confirmed that Fuentes attacked her, Fuentes confessed to Columbus police detectives, and DNA testing of the aborted fetus confirmed Fuentes was the father, Franklin County Prosecutor Dan Meyer and detective Jeffrey Huhn said in court Thursday.

Huhn said he was unable, when searching multiple databases, to find any evidence that Fuentes was in the country legally.

In denying bond, Lynch cited that evidence, the violence of the crime and the fact that Fuentes had been living in the same home with the girl and her mother.

“To allow him to return to that home, the traumatic and psychological impact would be undeserving to an alleged victim,” Lynch said. She also cited the “physical, and mental and emotional trauma” the girl suffered from enduring the rapes and the abortion, and finding her case at the center of the country's abortion debate.

The case gained national attention after an Indianapolis physician, Dr. Caitlin Bernard, said the child had to travel to Indiana due to Ohio banning abortions at the first detectable “fetal heartbeat” after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling.

President Joe Biden cited the case when he signed an order July 8 trying to protect abortion access. Some conservatives and prominent Republicans, including Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, cast doubt on the story initially, then condemned the attack after Fuentes was arrested.

Fuentes' attorney, Bryan Bowen, argued against a no-bond hearing and unsuccessfully asked Lynch to set a reasonable bond. He said there was no evidence that there was physical abuse outside of the rapes or that the girl had been put under the influence of drugs or alcohol. He also said that Fuentes had family ties in Columbus, that he had a job, and that there was no evidence of a criminal history. Fuentes has lived in the area about seven years.

“We've heard evidence about the nature of the offense, but we have not heard any evidence presented about any danger that Mr. Fuentes would pose to any particular person or to the community,” he said. He declined to comment after Lynch's ruling.

Dan Meyer, an assistant Franklin County prosecutor, said Thursday that Fuentes was providing for the girl's family, including her mother.

Columbus police learned about the girl’s pregnancy after her mother alerted Franklin County Children Services on June 22. Huhn said Fuentes confessed to raping the girl, who turned 10 on May 28, on two occasions.

The girl saw a Columbus-area doctor in late June with a plan to have an abortion locally, but that wasn’t possible due to the gestational age, determined to be six weeks and four days, Huhn testified.

Ohio's “heartbeat” abortion ban includes an exception only for an emergency that is life-threatening or involving a “serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”

Indiana’s Republican Senate leaders proposed a bill this month that would prohibit abortions from the time an egg is implanted in a uterus, with exceptions in cases of rape and incest and to protect the life of the mother. The proposal followed the controversy over the Ohio girl's abortion in Indiana.

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Man accused of firing shots, damaging federal building

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- A man accused of firing shots at a federal courthouse in Tennessee has been charged with destruction of government property.

Mark Thomas Reno is accused of firing at the federal building in Knoxville on July 3 and damaging three windows, according to court documents. Reno was remanded to custody during a detention hearing Thursday on the single charge.

An FBI affidavit said Reno was under surveillance as part of an undercover investigation and a tracking device showed his vehicle at the federal building at the time shots were fired. Security cameras on the federal building also captured video of the vehicle, the affidavit said.

An undercover FBI agent who met with Reno before the building was damaged said the defendant attended the U.S. Capitol riot in January 2021, but there's no evidence he broke any laws. The affidavit also said Reno belongs to a group with a mission to resist actions that oppose Catholic orthodoxy and that he made a number of statements about identifying targets and destroying property, including government buildings.

A federal public defender was appointed to represent Reno. She did not immediately respond Friday to a call seeking comment.

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