Tag: alabama

Alabama Set To Try New, Untested Execution Method

Alabama wants to execute a man so badly that they’re likely to become the first state in the nation to kill someone by nitrogen hypoxia. 

Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, who was sentenced to death for a 1988 murder-for-hire killing, has already survived one execution attempt from the state. Last November, he won a court case allowing him to demand to be executed specifically by nitrogen hypoxia, a method that has been approved in Alabama since 2018 but has remained untested.

Nonetheless, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall still asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date for Smith last week, with plans to use the method.

While four states in addition to Alabama have approved execution by lethal gas, no one has been executed using this method since 1999. While 20th-century gas chambers typically killed inmates using cyanide gas, death by nitrogen hypoxia is a completely untested method. Under the proposed process, an inmate would be placed in a gas chamber, where they would be forced to breathe pure nitrogen, ultimately causing death by suffocation due to the lack of oxygen.

After long arguing that they should be allowed to kill Smith by lethal injection because the state had not yet developed a nitrogen hypoxia protocol, state officials unveiled a formal nitrogen hypoxia process in conjunction with their motion to set Smith’s execution date. Under the process, the inmate will wear a mask, which will force them to breathe pure nitrogen gas “for 15 minutes, or five minutes following a flatline indication on the EKG, whichever is longer,” resulting in death by suffocation.

Smith won the right to be executed by this method in a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit last November. Smith argued that a lethal injection attempt would expose him to “an intolerable risk of torture, cruelty, or substantial pain,” citing the state’s previous botched executions.

The same day as the 11th Circuit’s ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a stay of execution for Smith. Alabama officials attempted to kill him by lethal injection that day, but they abandoned their attempt after they tried unsuccessfully for several hours to place IV needles in Smith’s arms.

While nitrogen hypoxia has been touted as a more humane method for killing death-row inmates—it’s simply unknown how much suffering death by nitrogen hypoxia causes.

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Alabama Judge Halts Medical Marijuana Licensing Again, This Time Over Alleged Open Meetings Violations

A Montgomery County Circuit Judge Thursday put a hold on Alabama’s medical cannabis program amid a lawsuit alleging the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC) violated the state’s Open Meetings Act at its most recent meeting.

The stay, issued by Judge James Anderson, followed a heated hearing where an attorney for the AMCC suggested the commission would air applicants’ “dirty laundry.”

Applicants denied a license won’t be able to request an investigative hearing until after the stay is lifted, and the commission will have to put site visits and evaluations on hold. AMCC Director John McMillan said that it will be “impossible” to issue licenses at an August 31 meeting.

“We’ll most likely have to schedule another meeting,” McMillan said after the hearing, and added that they would have to complete site visits.

Alabama Always, which sued the commission last month over the appointment of former chair Steven Stokes, filed a lawsuit against the AMCC, alleging the commission violated the state’s open meetings law at its August 10 meeting. The company, which applied for but did not receive a license, alleged that commission members privately nominated companies for public votes on license awards during an executive session.

The lawsuit alleges that commission members were instructed to seal their nominations in an envelope during the executive session, and the companies with the most nominations received a public vote in the August 10 meeting.

The AMCC re-awarded licenses for the production and distribution of medical cannabis at the August 10 meeting, two months after stopping earlier awards amid questions about the evaluation of applications.

The judge allowed other parties to join the suit by the end of the week. Alabama Always and other companies suing AMCC will have to prove that the commission violated state law.

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Black Woman Who Claimed She Was Kidnapped By White Man With ‘Orange Hair’ Admits She Made It All Up

A black woman who sparked a nationwide manhunt by claiming she was kidnapped in Alabama by a white man with “orange hair” admitted through her lawyer on Monday that she made it all up.

From The Independent, “Carlee Russell claimed she was kidnapped by a man with orange hair. It was all a lie”:

Carlethia “Carlee” Nichole Russell seemed to vanish on 13 July after calling 911 to report she had seen a toddler walking on the side of Interstate 459 in Alabama.

The 25-year-old told dispatch she stopped her car to check on the child, and called a family member before losing contact, according to the Hoover Police Department.

By the time officers arrived five minutes later, Ms Russell had seemingly disappeared, with her car engine still running, and the toddler was nowhere to be found.

Law enforcement and family members mounted a desperate search for the missing woman and pleaded with the public for help.

Then just over 48 hours later, police were notified that Ms Russell had returned home on foot.

She told detectives that she had been kidnapped by a white man with “orange hair”, and held captive in a semi-truck trailer and house before escaping.

However, less than two weeks after making headlines for a harrowing tale of disappearance, child neglect, and kidnapping, the Alabama woman admitted on 24 July it was all a lie.

NBC News reported that police said “Russell told them she was forced into an 18-wheeler truck and taken to a home where a man and a woman told her to get undressed and then took photos of her.”

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Innocent Woman Facing Life in Prison for Legally Purchasing Kratom & Driving 200 Feet Into Alabama

In a disgusting display of what’s fundamentally wrong with America’s drug war, Shaina Brown, an entirely innocent woman, who harmed no one, finds herself locked up behind bars, slapped with an egregious $1,000,000 bail, later lowered to a still absurdly high $250,000, all for the mere possession of a plant she bought legally, just 200 feet away from where she was arrested. The plant in question? Kratom, a botanical supplement that has been vilified by a select few states and the federal government, despite it being perfectly legal in the majority of the US, including where Brown had initially bought it. It is also extremely safe when consumed properly.

To show just how insidious the state’s war on kratom actually is, we compared some of the recent bail amounts in Escambia County to Shaina’s case. Folks with crimes like strangulation, assault, battery, murder, and sexual abuse all have lower bonds than Shaina.

According to local law enforcement, the arrest happened in the dead of night on April 1, 2023, after Brown crossed over the unmarked state line from Florida, where Kratom is legal, into Alabama, where it is not. For those who may be unaware, kratom is ground-up tea leaves that are consumed by millions worldwide for its therapeutic benefits. Shaina’s mistake? Unknowingly bringing it into a state that has criminalized it.

Now, Brown faces the grim reality of the drug war in America. A plant purchased legally turns into a Schedule 1 substance the moment she crosses that imaginary line drawn on a map, transforming her, in the eyes of Alabama law, from a law-abiding citizen to a felon, with potential charges carrying a sentence of 10 years to life in prison.

The charges are shocking, especially considering Shaina’s history of minor offenses: a solitary speeding ticket and a cold check written in 2014 for under $500. A woman who isn’t a hardened criminal is now facing the prospect of losing years of her life, all for unknowingly “trafficking” tea powder in Alabama.

What’s most chilling about these proceedings is the manner in which they’re carried out. Juries are informed that the defendants are charged with possession or trafficking of a Schedule 1 substance, but they’re not told that this substance is Kratom. This omission paints an unfair picture, aligning defendants like Shaina with the likes of hardened criminals involved in the trade of far more dangerous and illicit substances like fentanyl.

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Carlee Russell fired from spa job, co-workers ‘pissed’ about increasingly suspicious kidnapping story

Carlee Russell has officially disappeared — from the payroll of her Alabama job.

The owner of the Woodhouse spa in Birmingham told The Post that she’s been canned, and that her steaming co-workers are “pissed” about their former colleague’s increasingly suspect kidnapping account.

Owner Stuart Rome said his staffers were stunned after hearing of Russell’s purported disappearance and did everything in their power to help bring her home.

“It was really devastating for them thinking a co-worker was abducted,” he said. “The following day, Saturday, it was the busiest day of the week, and they had to plug along and work and in the off times pass out flyers and other things.”

But since Russell abruptly resurfaced police have revealed she had searched for bus ticket prices and movies about kidnapping on the day she disappeared, drawing mounting skepticism over her account.

Her co-workers’ concern also started to turn to anger.

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No evidence of toddler on highway when Carlee Russell disappeared: Police

New details were released by police Tuesday night about the mysterious disappearance and return of Carlee Russell in Alabama.

The Hoover Police Department said the night she went missing she went to Target after leaving her job and purchased some snacks and food items.

Police added these items were not located inside her abandoned vehicle or with her cell phone and wig at the scene of her disappearance on I-459.

Russell disappeared shortly after reporting she’d seen a toddler walking along the interstate to 911.

However, police said they have not located any evidence of a toddler walking down the interstate, nor received any additional calls about a toddler walking down the interstate, despite numerous vehicles passing through that area as depicted by the traffic camera surveillance video.

The police department said it has also obtained surveillance footage from the night Russell returned to her parent’s home.

The footage is from Russell’s neighborhood and shows her walking down the sidewalk alone before she arrived at her residence, according to police. Fire department radio traffic obtained by several media outlets shows that medics were dispatched to her residence on an “unresponsive but breathing” person.

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Woman returns home after she mysteriously disappeared calling 911 about wandering toddler

A missing woman came back home in a return just as puzzling as her disturbing disappearance. The Hoover Police Department in Alabama announced that their 911 center received a call at 10:45 p.m. on Saturday about Carlethia “Carlee” Nichole Russell, 25, reappearing.

“She walked up, banged on the door, and that was her,” Hoover Police Chief Nicholas Derzis told WBRC.

He said he was unsure how she got there. Police still had to determine what happened after she went missing while reporting that she saw a toddler wandering alongside a local interstate. Investigators will sit down with her, but not yet.

“The first thing is to give Carlee and family a little time to get themselves back together,” the chief reportedly said. “I know it’s been a tough experience for them. When we think it’s time to sit down and have a conversation with Carlee and try to get some facts, we’ll do that.”

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Eerie mystery as Alabama woman, 25, vanishes after screaming down phone to family when she approached a toddler she found walking along the highway at night

A 25-year-old woman vanished after pulling over to check on a toddler who was wondering alone along an Alabama interstate highway.

Carlethia ‘Carlee’ Nichole Russell was on the phone with her sister-in-law when she got out of her car to check up on the child. The family member then heard a sudden scream and shortly after, lost all contact with Russell. 

When officers arrived at the location, they found Russell’s car, along with her cell phone, purse, wig and apple watch in the nearby area – but Russell and the child were nowhere to be seen. 

Hoover Police have not received any other calls of a missing child. One witness reported possibly seeing a gray vehicle and a man standing outside of Carlee’s vehicle, but police said they have no additional information. 

‘In the process at some point she got out of the car and my daughter-in-law could hear her asking the child if they were okay,’ her mother, Talitha Russell, said. ‘The child did not respond, or at least she did not hear her respond, he or she respond.’

‘And then she heard our daughter Carlee scream, and from there on all we could hear was noise … background noise in her phone, which we later found out was noise from the interstate.’

Russel left work around 8:20 PM on Thursday before stopping to pick up food for her and her mom. 

She then travelled toward Hoover and called 911 at about 9:30 PM to report the missing child wandering on the side of Interstate 459. 

After calling 911, Russell reportedly called her sister-in-law to tell her she was going to check up on the child. The family member lost contact with her at about 9:36 pm but the line remained open. 

Responding officers located Russell’s abandoned car along with her cell phone, her purse, wig and apple watch in the nearby area, but no sign of her or a child.  

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Alabama mother and son left ‘shocked’ after his lemonade stand was reported to state labor department

An Alabama eight-year-old had his sights set on Disney World and decided to open up a lemonade stand to help him get there. However, he and his mother received a surprising call that added a wrench in their plans.

Cam and his mother Cristal Johnson were contacted by the Alabama Labor Department over a complaint that the lemonade stand violated child labor laws. 

“Needless to say, I was very shocked and saddened by the fact that anyone found wrong in what I was trying to do. I was trying to do a good thing, give back to my community and to find out that someone insinuated that I was trying to labor minors, that was…it was pretty sad,” Cristal said on “Fox & Friends First” Thursday. 

Eight-year-old Cam said he started his lemonade stand as a way to make money to go to Disney World. 

“I tried to ask my mom, ‘can I go to the Disney World?’” Cam told host Todd Piro.

After Cam started his lemonade stand, his mother Cristal put up a flyer encouraging other kids to take up a “one-day apprenticeship” at the stand to learn the value of hard work and money.

The flyer said Cristal and Cam were looking to have two kids joins as a “smiler” and “greeter.”

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Why Does Alabama Only Let You Consume Peach-Flavored Edibles?

Alabama, which legalized medical weed back in 2021, is just now getting around to licensing cultivators, testing labs, processors, transporters, and dispensaries so qualifying patients can begin to have access. The catch? You can’t smoke it, and all the edibles you consume must be peach-flavored.

You see, if the edibles are cube-shaped (also stipulated by law) and peach-flavored, they’re somehow less likely to interest kids—at least that’s the state Senate’s logic after a heated floor debate, according to Alabama Reflector‘s Brian Lyman (and the new regulations).

“At one point the bill said it would have no taste, but (state Sen. Tim) Melson said that would cause people to gag. So the compromise was a single flavor,” Lyman told AL.com. “Maybe peach isn’t as attractive to people?”

This isn’t the first time lawmakers have used “for the children” justifications to attempt to regulate which products adults may legally buy. For over two decades, Reason‘s Jacob Sullum has documented the assaults on malt liquor, clove cigarettes, and any other vice that might possibly excite the taste buds of minors. In 2020, the Food and Drug Administration banned flavored e-cigarette cartridges to “combat the troubling epidemic of youth e-cigarette use,” ignoring the many surveys in which ex-smokers report that flavored vape cartridges actually helped them quit smoking tobacco cigarettes. And the Alabama case isn’t the first time the kid safety justification has been used to justify the regulation of edibles.

Maryland regulators, who took forever to get their medical cannabis scheme off the ground, were further delayed back in 2019 because they needed to develop rules governing the appearance of edibles “to ensure the safety of minors.” (“I don’t want to deprive anyone of their medication, but let’s treat this like medicine, not make little gummy bears out of it,” said Republican state Sen. Robert Cassilly at the time.) New York has banned the marketing and advertising of cannabis products “designed in any way to appeal to children or other minors.”

In 2014, Colorado regulators deliberated over whether to ban practically all edibles before ultimately allowing a broader variety, but disallowing those shaped like animals, people, or fruit (which are also banned in California). In 2018, Washington state regulators mulled rules that would have banned certain shapes of edibles—along with the use of icing and sprinkles—before ultimately just banning the use of bright colors; per the authorities, product colors must fall within a “standard pantone color book that sets the list of colors and specified ranges within those colors.”

“If you go through a [New York] cannabis dispensary right now,” Columbia University epidemiologist Katherine Keyes told the Associated Press, “it’s almost absurd how youth-oriented a lot of the packaging and the products are.”

Lawmakers, regulators, and public health worrywarts are aided and abetted by a willing media. “Consumption of Marijuana Edibles Surges Among Children, Study Finds,” reads a New York Times headline from earlier this year. “3,000+ young children accidentally ate weed edibles in 2021, study finds,” adds NPR. (Though any accidental ingestion that results in hospitalization is worrying, no children died in any of the thousands of cases analyzed in the study—a not-insignificant point that few journalists pointed out.)

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