Alabama has executed an inmate for a 1996 murder after a divided U.S. Supreme Court sided with the state, clearing the way for the man to receive a lethal injection.

An Alabama man who avoided execution in February has been put to death for the 1991 killing of a woman abducted during a robbery and then shot in a cemetery.

A lethal injection next week in Alabama could be blocked after an appellate court ordered a judge to consider the inmate's mental disability claim.

Federal judges have heard arguments over whether an Alabama inmate had the mental capacity to understand paperwork setting up his planned execution next week.

Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek wants to expel a Republican lawmaker who allowed violent protesters into the state Capitol in December.

Under order by the Supreme Court, India’s government has agreed to provide more medical oxygen to hospitals in the capital city of New Delhi.

The order from the high court follows two years in which inmates saw some rare success in bringing challenges based on the issue of chaplains in the death chamber. This time, liberal and conservative members of the court normally in disagreement over death penalty issues found common ground not on the death penalty itself but on the issue of religious freedom and how the death penalty is carried out. Dunham said most state execution protocols, which set who is present in the death chamber, do not mention spiritual advisers. For most of the modern history of the U.S. death penalty since the 1970s, spiritual advisers have not been present in execution chambers, he said. The Biden administration is still weighing how it will proceed in death penalty cases.

The lethal injection of Willie B. Smith III was called off Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021, when the U.S. Supreme Court maintained an injunction. The state prison system said the execution would not proceed given the ruling. “Alabama has not carried its burden of showing that the exclusion of all clergy members from the execution chamber is necessary to ensure prison security. Smith had sought to allow his spiritual adviser, Pastor Robert Wiley, in the execution chamber, something the state does not allow. In the past, Alabama routinely put a Christian prison chaplain, who was employed by the state, in the execution chamber to pray with an inmate if requested.

This undated photo provided by the Alabama Department of Corrections shows Willie B. Smith III. It was unclear if the scheduled execution of Willie B. Smith III would proceed late Thursday night. The Alabama attorney general's office in court filings disputed that Smith is disabled and called it a last-minute delaying maneuver. AdIn the past, Alabama routinely brought in a prison chaplain who would pray with an inmate if requested. Smith took no offered meals on Thursday but did have a soda and a bag of potato chips, Alabama Department of Corrections spokeswoman Samantha Rose said.

(Alabama Department of Corrections via AP)MONTGOMERY, Ala. – An appellate court has stayed the lethal injection of an Alabama inmate to consider claims that the state failed to give the man, who has an IQ below 75, required assistance with forms impacting the timing of his execution. The court stayed the execution to give a week to consider his claims. The court also issued a separate ruling on religious grounds saying Alabama cannot execute Smith unless they allow his personal pastor in the execution chamber. After Alabama authorized nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method, the state gave death row inmates a brief window to select that as their execution method. The Alabama attorney general's office is disputing that Smith is disabled and called the argument an attempt to delay the execution.