Alabama Death row inmate Ronald Bert Smith, Jr. was executed Thursday night by lethal injection for the 1994 slaying of Huntsville convenience store clerk Casey Wilson.
During the 34-minute execution at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Smith heaved and coughed for about 13 minutes and underwent two consciousness tests to make sure he couldn't feel pain.
Smith's last words publicly were "no ma'am" when he was asked by the warden if he wanted to make a statement. However, he was moving his lips before and after the drugs were administered.
Smith was declared dead by a physician at 11:05 p.m., said Bob Horton, prisons spokesman.
During 13 minutes of the execution, from about 10:34 to 10:47, Smith appeared to be struggling for breath and heaved and coughed and clenched his left fist after apparently being administered the first drug in the three-drug combination. At times his left eye also appeared to be slightly open.
A Department of Corrections captain performed two consciousness checks before they proceeded with administering the next two drugs to stop his breathing and heart.
The consciousness tests consist of the corrections officer calling out Smith's name, brushing his eyebrows back, and pinching him under his left arm.
Smith continued to heave, gasp and cough after the first test was performed at 10:37 p.m. and again at 10:47 p.m.. After the second one, Smith's right arm and hand moved.
Smith had claimed in a lawsuit challenging Alabama's lethal injection protocol that the first drug to sedate may not make inmates insensate enough so they can't feel the burning pain the next two drugs would cause.
None of Smith's family members attended the execution. Two of his lawyers, however, did witness the execution and clearly had a problem with the way the execution was proceeding. At one point while their client was struggling, one of the attorneys said out loud that he and another attorney had warned prison officials that a contingency plan was needed if an inmate struggled like that.
A member of victim Casey Wilson's family witnessed the execution. Prison officials declined to identify the that family member.
Alabama Prison Commissioner Jeff Dunn said that the execution went as outlined in the prison system's execution protocol. "We followed our protocol," he said.
Dunn said there was no discussion among prison officials about stopping the execution once Smith started coughing and heaving.
An autopsy will be performed on Smith's body and that will provide any information on any "irregularities" in the execution.
Dunn contradicted witnesses who said Smith reacted to the consciousness tests. "From where I was seated I didn't see any reaction to the consciousness assessment," he said.
Dunn declined to provide details of the protocol the state uses.
The protocol has been approved after examination by the medical community, prison officials and the courts, Dunn said.
"For more than two decades Ronald Bert Smith has avoided justice for the cold blooded murder of Casey Wilson, who was first pistol whipped and shot in the arm after refusing to open a convenience store cash register and then shot in the head and left to die. The trial court described Smith's acts as 'an execution style slaying.' Tonight, justice was finally served," Attorney General Luther Strange said in a statement issued after the execution.
The execution happened after a night of temporary stays by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ultimately denied Smith's request to delay the executions so the high court could consider his appeals.
Smith, 45, was set to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Thursday. He was to be the second inmate executed this year in Alabama.
The U.S. Supreme Court for the last time refused to stay Smith's execution. The execution was then set for 9:45 p.m.
As with the two stays denied by the high court earlier in the night, Smith's attorneys again sought a reconsideration, this time in order to give them time to file an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court over the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals denial of their appeal on the challenge to the state's three-drug method of execution.
That third request was denied.
Smith's attorneys had decided not to appeal on the drug issue but instead appealed to SCOTUS over Alabama's law that allows judges to override jury recommendations for life. The Alabama Supreme Court had denied the appeal on the override issue.
Smith, a former Eagle Scout and Army reservist convicted in the 1994 slaying of a Huntsville convenience store clerk, for the second time tonight has been granted a temporary stay of execution by a U.S. Supreme Court justice.
The state in January executed Christopher Eugene Brooks, Alabama's first execution since 2013.
Two other executions scheduled this year, those of Vernon Madison and Tommy Arthur, were stayed earlier in 2016 by appeal courts.
Smith had been granted a temporary stay at 5:14 p.m. Thursday. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas issued the stay "pending further order of the court." The Department of Corrections treated this as a temporary stay of the execution and as of 6:30 p.m. Thursday had not cancelled it.
But, at 7:25 p.m., the U.S. Supreme Court vacated Thomas' order and denied the stay. "The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the Court is denied. The order heretofore entered by Justice Thomas is vacated." Four justices - Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan would grant the application for stay of execution but they needed five to grant the stay.
The Department of Corrections then reset the execution at 8:15 p.m. But then about 7:40 p.m. prisons spokesman Bob Horton announced that the Attorney General's Office had been told that another U.S. Supreme Court Justice has asked for another temporary stay.
That stay was granted by Thomas again "pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court."
After the original stay was denied, Smith's attorneys requested a reconsideration of the stay.
"The Court released an order earlier today from which it appears that four Justices favor review of Mr. Smith's petition for writ of certiorari (review), but he did not receive five votes to stay of Mr. Smith's impending execution," Smith's attorneys stated in their request for reconsideration of the denial.
"Because the Court's inconsistent practices respecting 5-4 stay denials in capital cases clash with the appearance and reality both of equal justice under law and of sound judicial decision-making, Mr. Smith asks this Court to reconsider the Court's denial of his application for a stay of execution."
Alabama had until midnight to execute Smith. Otherwise it would have to gone back to the Alabama Supreme Court and seek another execution date.
On Thursday, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals denied his request for a stay of execution That court also affirmed a district court's dismissal of Smith's lawsuit challenging Alabama's three-drug lethal injection combination as cruel and unusual punishment.
In November, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a similar stay in the Tommy Arthur case. There were temporary stays issued before the execution was called off for that night.
The Associated Press also reported that Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley had no plans to stop the execution, a spokeswoman said Thursday evening. Smith's attorneys had petitioned Bentley seeking to have his sentence commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Bentley has never granted clemency to a death row inmate.
While waiting word from the U.S. Supreme Court Smith met with his mother, father and son and four other visitors today.
Smith declined to eat breakfast but as his request for his last meal, which he was offered at 2:34 p.m. and ate, was three pieces of chicken and fries, Prisons Public Information Officer Bob Horton said.
A special last request was that he be allowed to take Holy Communion, which he did at 3:30 p.m. Smith is Methodist.
The execution was also the first one for Holman Warden Cynthia Stewart. And it would be the first Alabama execution administered by a woman.
The warden at Holman, the place in Alabama where executions are conducted, is charged with administering executions under Alabama law. Stewart took over as warden this year.
Appeal claims
Smith was convicted in 1995 in the shooting death of Casey Wilson, a clerk at a Circle C convenience store in Huntsville, on Nov. 8, 1994. The jury, in a 7-5 vote, recommended Smith be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. The judge, however, overrode the verdict and imposed the death sentence.
As part of Smith's challenge to the state's lethal injection method, U.S. District Court Judge Keith Watkins at one point considered allowing Smith to be executed with one large dose of Midazolam, a sedative that's the first drug in the lethal injection combination. That method of execution has never before been tried.
It was a suggestion Smith's lawyer's made and the Department of Corrections had agreed. But Watkins later ended negotiations on that issue.
Smith claims that during the first execution using Alabama's new three-drug protocol - on Jan. 21 - that one of inmate Christopher Brooks' eyes opened during his execution. Smith claims that Brooks was sedated but not "insensate" to the pain caused by the injection of the other two drugs.
That Attorney General's Office has stated that Smith presented absolutely no medical evidence or testimony of any kind supporting such a conclusion. The failure of the eyelids to properly close - called Lagophthalmos - "is a such a common condition in surgeries in which patients undergo general anesthesia that medical studies suggest that patients' eyelids be taped to reduce the chance of corneal abrasion," the AG stated.
Casey Wilson
Efforts to reach Casey Wilson's family were unsuccessful prior to publication of this story.
Wilson, 26, was the lone clerk during a robbery at the Circle C Store at Memorial Parkway and Byrd Spring Road when he was shot to death on Nov. 8, 1994.
A native of Muleshoe, Texas, Wilson was an honors graduate from the University of Eastern New Mexico. Wilson, his wife, Sharon, and their then-5-week-old son, Jackie, were preparing to leave Huntsville for good on Dec. 15, 1994 because he hadn't been able to find a job in his field, according to a story in The Huntsville Times.
Wilson's degree was in computer information systems, but he worked at the a convenience store because he could not find a job in his field in Huntsville, Wilson's wife told The Times.
Wilson's wife, who holds a master's degree in computer science from Eastern New Mexico University, said she and Wilson came to Huntsville in December 1993 so she could work on an internship at Redstone Arsenal.
The internship was almost finished and they were preparing to move, she told The Times.
Crime and trial
A prosecutor said Smith, Phillip Chad Roundtree, 18, and Jay Allen Zuercher, 18, stopped at the convenience store for cigarettes. Smith told the two teens that he was going to rob the store because he had worked there awhile and he was going to "pop" the guy inside.
Smith went into the store, got a soft drink from the cooler and placed it on the counter, Taylor said. He then pulled a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol from his pants and pointed it in Wilson's face, forcing him into the store's restroom where he shot him. Wilson was pistol-whipped before he was shot in the head, left arm and chest.
Smith went outside and got a 9mm pistol and entered the store again, according to a prosecutor. He shot the lock off a cabinet where the security videotape recorder was kept, he said.
No cash was taken from the store but the videotape recorder and a cassette tape was missing. The videotape, later recovered by police, showed Smith entering the store and walking to a drink cooler. He then approached Wilson with a Mountain Dew soft drink and pointed a pistol at him.
Smith is then seen forcing Wilson back out of the view of the store's security camera.
The tape then showed Zuercher enter the store appearing to hold something. Zuercher quickly ducks while walking in a crouched position toward the store's counter.
Smith later bragged about the killing to a group of people, one of whom later recorded a conversation with Smith for police for the purchase of the 9mm gun. Shell casings from that gun matched.
Smith also later confessed to police.
Smith told the jury and judge he was sorry for what he had done.
Smith's lawyer also argued that Smith was under the influence of alcohol and angry during the crime and was not able to appreciate the criminality of his conduct. They also argued he had no prior criminal history, other than a 1990 misdemeanor minor in possession of alcohol charge.
The judge disagreed with the jury's recommendation for life without parole, saying Smith's "acts demonstrate a pitiless indifference to Casey Wilson's fears, pains and suffering, and pleas for life. The most chilling and heinous aspect of this crime is the defendant unquestionably enjoyed and reveled in his vile acts."
Prosecutors portrayed Smith as a nobody who tried to prop himself up in front of his friends by pretending to be a hit man when he killed Wilson.
Smith's attorneys argued that Smith never intended to rob the store. Smith was overcome by jealousy, they said, because he thought Wilson was having an affair with a woman who danced nude at the Fantasia Club. The dancer testified she never had a romantic relationship with Smith and that she had never met Wilson.
Smith later would testify that he may have been wrong about seeing Wilson with the dancer.
Smith's background
Smith was a 23-year-old Army reservist at the time of the shooting. His life until that point had some trauma according to Smith's recent appeal for clemency to Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley.
Smith was born Jan. 13, 1971 at Seoul Military Hospital. His father was a Vietnam veteran. His parents adopted two Korean children. His mother became abusive to the children, according to the clemency appeal. The family moved to Huntsville in 1982.
Ronald Bert Smith awarded Eagle Scout
At age 15 Smith became an Eagle Scout He received numerous commendations from local and national leaders, including President Ronald Reagan, Sen.Howell Heflin, and Sen. Jeremiah Denton, according to the clemency request. Then Huntsville Mayor Joe Davis wrote, "I am sure that you will continue your life in a manner that will make our
country stronger because of your personal belief and your willingness to serve to the best of your ability."
By the time Smith graduated from Grissom High School in 1989, he had an alcohol addiction, according to the clemency request.
Ronald Bert Smith Jr., with his mother and father and son, in photo taken in prison
Smith dropped out of the University of Alabama due to his drinking. But he came back to Huntsville and earned his associates degree from Calhoun Community College and joined the 326 Chemical Company in the Army Reserves.
Smith had a child with his girlfriend in June 1994, five months before the slaying. Smith and his girlfriend broke up in August 1994.
Smith has turned his life around in prison, his attorneys stated in his clemency request to Gov. Bentley.
"For more than 20 years, Ronald Smith Jr. has served the sentence chosen by his jury, life in prison. He has done so with a remorseful and repentant heart, endeavoring to make a positive difference in the lives of those closest to him, including his family, correctional officers, and fellow inmates," according to the clemency request.
"Armed with a renewed faith in Christ, Mr. Smith has shown that the abuse in his past, whether child abuse or alcohol abuse, does not define him. Instead, he has striven to be the leader and public servant so many recognized he had the potential to be, even from prison."
SCOTUS Smith Stay Order by KentFaulk on Scribd