Execution Halted Due to Inmate’s Inability to Understand Form

A death-row inmate in Alabama was entitled to a preliminary injunction because he stated a valid claim under federal disability law that he couldn’t understand the form the state gave him to choose the method by which he would be executed, the Eleventh Circuit said.

After a change in Alabama law, Matthew Reeves was given a form allowing him to choose either lethal injection or nitrogen hypoxia—asphyxiation by breathing pure nitrogen—as the means by which he would be executed. Because he didn’t return the form by the stated deadline, he was set to die by lethal injection.

Reeves, who has ...