Execution Postponed For Jeffrey Lynn Borden

ATMORE, AL - Death Row inmate Jeffrey Lynn Borden was scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. tonight at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, but that will not happen, according to a report from the Alabama Department of Corrections. Borden was sentenced to death in 1995 for the Dec. 24, 1993, shooting deaths of his wife Cheryl and her father, Rolan Harris, in Gardendale. He got word a mere three hours before his scheduled execution that it would not be happening tonight.

According to a report from Alabama Media Group, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit stayed Borden's execution last week so Judge Keith Watkins could have time to hold an evidentiary hearing in an inmate lawsuit that claims the lethal injection drug combination used by Alabama is unconstitutional. This afternoon, the Alabama Attorney General's Office announced it would not appeal the stay, which means the execution must be rescheduled.

Alabama's use of the three-drug combination (sodium thiopental, pancurionium bromide and potassium chloride) has been the source of controversy since the 2016 execution of Ronald Smith - also at Holman Correctional Facility - when Smith was reported to have gasped for air and choked for 13 minutes before losing consciousness.

The Alabama Attorney General's Office has stated in court records that the state's lethal injection method had already been litigated in another case and ruled constitutional. Yesterday, in an order from the U.S. Supreme Court three associate justices - Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor - said they would have denied the Attorney General's request and kept the injunction blocking the execution in place. (For more updates on this story and free news alerts for your neighborhood, sign up for your local Birmingham Patch morning newsletter.)

Alabama also has set an Oct. 19 execution for Torrey Twane McNabb for his conviction in the fatal shooting of Montgomery police officer Anderson Gordon in September 1997. Borden was scheduled to be the third inmate executed in Alabama this year. Thomas Arthur was executed May 26 this year, and Robert Melson was executed June 8. Arthur, who had escaped execution seven times in the past, was put to death for the 1982 killing of Troy Wicker. Melson was convicted of killing three people during the 1994 robbery of a Popeye's Chicken restaurant in Gadsden.

Photo from Alabama Department of Corrections