James Barber Executed in Alabama After 22 Years on Death Row — Last Meal & Final Words
On July 21st, 2023, after spending 22 years on death row, James Edward Barber was executed by lethal injection at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama at 1:56 in the morning. Stay till the end because in this video, I’ll tell you about the terrible crime that put him there, the legal battle that nearly stopped his execution, what his last meal was, and the final words he spoke before he died.
To understand what happened on the night of May 20th, 2001, you need to understand the world James Barber was living in at that time. He was not a stranger. That’s the first thing to establish. James Edward Barber, known to those close to him as Jimmy, had a connection to the Epps household that went back a little while.
He had at one point dated the daughter of Dorothy Epps, a 75-year-old woman who lived in Harvest, Alabama, a small community in Madison County in the northern part of the state. Through that relationship, Barber had spent time around the family. He had also, at various points, been hired to do repair work on Dorothy’s home.
So, when he showed up at her door that Sunday evening, she would have recognized him. She would have had no reason to be alarmed. In all likelihood, she opened the door and let him in without a second thought. Dorothy Epps was 75 years old and weighed around 100 Now, before we get to what happened inside that house, it is important to lay out something that would later become central to the case and to any honest discussion of it.
James Barber arrived at Dorothy Epps’s home that night in a severely compromised state. According to testimony in a 2012 court hearing, Barber had spent that day consuming large amounts of alcohol, at least a case of beer by some accounts, as well as crack cocaine and prescription pain medication. He was, by any clinical measure, in a state of extreme intoxication.
This is not mentioned to excuse what happened. It is mentioned because it is a documented fact of the case and because understanding the full picture of events is the only way to understand what followed, including the legal arguments, the appeals, and the sentence itself. What is not in dispute is this.
Dorothy Epps died inside her home that night as a result of injuries she sustained during a violent attack. She suffered severe trauma, including injuries consistent with a struggle. The medical examiner’s findings confirmed she had attempted to defend herself. She had done nothing wrong. She was a 75-year-old woman who opened her door to someone she knew. Barber fled the scene.
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He later told investigators he had gone there looking for money. He took her purse. Days after the killing, police arrested James Barber. And here is where this case takes its first significant turn. He confessed voluntarily on camera. Barber sat down with investigators and gave what was described as an elaborate and detailed account of what he had done.
He did not minimize it. He did not deflect blame onto the drugs or the alcohol. He looked into the camera and said, and these are his words, that the crime was senseless and stupid and that he deserved to be charged and put to death for it. That video-recorded confession would go on to become the centerpiece of the prosecution’s case at trial.
But even without it, the evidence against Barber was substantial. Physical evidence, witness accounts, and the circumstances of his arrest all pointed clearly in one direction. The trial moved forward and the jury convicted James Barber of capital murder. Then came the sentencing phase.
The jury deliberated and returned a recommendation, death. But the vote was 11 to 1. 11 jurors voted for death. One voted for life without parole. Now, here is something worth pausing on because it matters, both legally and in terms of how this case was later argued. At the time of Barber’s trial, Alabama was one of the very few states in the country that allowed judges to override jury sentencing recommendations in capital cases.
What that means in practice is this. Even if a jury recommends death, a judge can impose it. But it also means the reverse. A judge can impose death even when a jury recommends life. In Barber’s case, the jury had voted 11 to 1 for death. That is a significant majority. The judge imposed the death sentence in line with the jury’s recommendation.
But legal advocates would later argue that in nearly every other state with capital punishment, a non-unanimous jury recommendation, meaning anything less than 12 to 0, would have automatically resulted in a sentence of life without parole, not death. Alabama’s sentencing structure was, for many years, an outlier. The state has since abolished judicial override in capital cases, but that change came after Barber’s sentence had already been imposed.
James Edward Barber was sent to death row at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. He arrived there with a violent crime behind him, a video confession on record, and a death sentence hanging over him. He would spend the next 22 years waiting. 22 years is a long time. It is long enough, people on either side of the death penalty debate would agree, for a person to change.
Whether that change is relevant to the question of justice is a matter people disagree on deeply. But the change itself, in James Barber’s case, was documented by those who knew him, corresponded with him, and visited him. By multiple accounts, Barber underwent a significant religious conversion sometime after arriving on death row.
He spoke and wrote about it openly and at length. In one letter, which became widely circulated in the years before his execution, he described what he called the moment he reached rock bottom inside his cell. He wrote, “God is so good. My life was over. I opened the Bible and God reached down, lifted me up in his hands, and said, ‘Now, you are ready for me to use as an instrument for my glory.
‘” He brought light into the deepest darkness a man can find himself in. He brought peace where there was only chaos. Now, people hearing that will react differently depending on their worldview, their faith, and their views on criminal justice. Some will find it moving. Others will be skeptical. Both reactions are understandable.
What is harder to dismiss is what happened next because the most remarkable development in James Barber’s time on death row did not involve the courts or his lawyers or any appeal. It involved Dorothy Epps’s granddaughter. Her name was Sarah Gregory, and at some point years after the murder of her grandmother, Sarah Gregory made the decision to reach out to James Barber, the man who had killed Dorothy Epps, and extend her forgiveness. This is not a common thing.
It is not easy to even describe without stepping back and acknowledging how unusual it is. But it happened and it was documented. Barber wrote back to her. He said, “Sarah, sorry could never come close to what is in my heart and soul. The self-loathing, shame, shock, and utter disbelief at what took place at my hand almost overcame me.
If not for God’s grace, I would be gone.” Sarah Gregory responded. She wrote, “You have freed me. Receiving your letter was the final piece of freedom. I have no anger, zero.” The two began communicating regularly, phone calls, letters. Gregory became, by all accounts, a genuine presence in Barber’s life on death row. And when the state of Alabama set an execution date for James Edward Barber, Sarah Gregory, Dorothy Epps’s granddaughter, publicly opposed it.
The granddaughter of the woman who was killed went on record against the execution of the man who killed her grandmother. As Barber’s execution date approached in 2023, his legal team mounted a serious challenge, not to his conviction, which was never in dispute, but to the method of his execution. To understand this argument, you need to know a little bit about what had been happening in Alabama in the years leading up to 2023.
Between 2022 and 2023, Alabama had developed a deeply troubled record when it came to executions. The state had carried out or attempted multiple executions using lethal injection, and things had gone significantly wrong. In July 2022, the execution of Joe James took more than 3 hours to complete. Witnesses and medical observers described it as a prolonged and troubling process.
There were serious questions raised about whether he was experiencing pain. Later that same year, Alabama attempted to execute Alan Miller. The execution was called off after more than an hour because the execution team was unable to establish an intravenous line. Miller was taken back to his cell.
Alabama announced it would reschedule. Then came Kenneth Smith. Again, the execution was called off because of intravenous line access problems. Three executions, three serious failures. Alabama was the only state in the country to have botched three executions in a row. Barber’s lawyers pointed to this record directly. They argued that their client, who had a higher body mass index, which can make intravenous line access more difficult, faced a substantial risk of severe harm if Alabama attempted to execute him by lethal injection. They noted that
Alabama had not made any meaningful changes to its execution protocol in the wake of those failures. The legal team also pointed out something else. Alabama had already approved nitrogen hypoxia as an alternative execution method. It was on the books. What the state had not done was finalized the protocols for actually using it.
Barber’s attorneys argued that if nitrogen hypoxia was available, approved by the state’s own government, then forcing him to undergo a lethal injection that carried a documented risk of going wrong raised serious Eighth Amendment concerns. The Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. That is the legal standard.
The question Barber’s lawyers were pressing was, given Alabama’s track record, and given that an alternative method existed, was proceeding with lethal injection constitutional? Federal courts heard the arguments. A stay of execution was sought. It was denied. The case went to the US Supreme Court on an emergency basis in the hours leading up to the scheduled execution.
The Supreme Court took up the question, and in a 6-3 decision, the court declined to grant a stay. Three justices dissented. Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Sotomayor wrote in her dissent that the decision was another troubling example of this court stymieing the development of Eighth Amendment law by pushing forward executions without complete information.
That dissent would become part of the broader national conversation about the death penalty, the role of the Supreme Court, and whether the legal system was moving fast enough or too fast when it came to questions of how executions are carried out. But that conversation was happening outside the walls of Holman Correctional Facility.
Inside, James Barber was preparing for what was coming. The execution had been scheduled for 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, July 20th, 2023. It did not happen at 6:00 p.m. because of the last-minute Supreme Court filings and the court’s deliberation, the process was delayed. Hours passed. Barber remained in holding, waiting for the appeals to run their course.
In the days leading up to that night, he had not been idle. Records show that on July 19th, he received 10 visitors and made six phone calls. On July 20th, the day of the scheduled execution, he received 22 visitors and made two calls. He had, by all accounts, maintained relationships throughout his time on death row.
People who knew him before, people who had come to know him through his faith work, spiritual advisers, family. He had spent years trying to, as he put it, live in a way that expressed what words could not. He refused breakfast that final morning. He ate snacks, drank beverages, and later had his final meal: loaded hash browns, a western omelet, spicy sausage, and toast.
At some point before he was moved to the execution chamber, something happened that has been described by those who were present as unexpected and, in its own way, extraordinary. Barber and the people around him, staff, spiritual advisers, supporters who were present, began to sing. They sang “When the Saints Go Marching In.” And Barber led them in a march around the room.
Then a prison staff member, not Barber, not his team, requested “Amazing Grace.” And they sang that, too. The Supreme Court denied the stay. The execution would proceed. James Barber was moved to the execution chamber in the early hours of Friday, July 21st, 2023. At approximately 1:33 in the morning, he was asked for his last words.
He spoke directly to the family of Dorothy Epps first. “I love them,” he said. “I’m sorry for what happened. I truly am. I can’t apologize anymore. No words would fit.” Then he turned his attention to the officials in the room. Governor Kay Ivey was named specifically. He looked at the chamber, the people who had authorized what was about to happen.
And he said, “I forgive you for what you’re about to do.” After his final words, a spiritual adviser who had been permitted to accompany him into the chamber remained at his side. The drugs were administered. Witnesses present reported that his eyes closed, his abdomen pulsed and his breathing gradually slowed until it stopped.
James Edward Barber was pronounced dead at 1:56 a.m. on July 21st, 2023. Some witnesses present gave a different account, describing what they perceived as signs of distress during the process. Those accounts were disputed by officials. Before his death, James Barber had prepared a written statement. He asked that it be published.
This is a portion of what he wrote. “At times, I know I failed to do my best, but I made up my mind early on that mere words could not express my sorrow at what had occurred at my hands. And so I hope that the way I lived my life would be a testimony to the family of Dorothy Epps, and also my family, of the regret and shame I have for what I’ve done.
I don’t know if I’ve succeeded. That’s not for me to judge.” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall released a statement after the execution was carried out. It read in part, “Justice has been served. This morning, James Barber was put to death for the terrible crime he committed over two decades ago, the especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel murder of Dorothy Epps.
” Dorothy Epps’s family had waited more than 22 years for that statement to be true. Whatever else is said about this case, that is a fact that deserves to sit on its own. A 75-year-old woman was killed in her own home by someone she trusted. Her family carried that for more than two decades.
The James Barber case did not end conversations in Alabama. If anything, it opened new ones. His execution was Alabama’s first successful lethal injection since the string of failed attempts in 2022. That fact alone made it significant in the national conversation about capital punishment and execution protocols. Dorothy Epps was 75 years old when she died.
She was a woman who answered her door for someone she knew on a Sunday evening in Alabama and never got to see Monday. That is where this story starts. Everything else, the confession, the trial, the years on death row, the forgiveness, the legal battles, the Supreme Court, the singing, the final words, all of it flows from that. Whether justice was served on July 21st, 2023, is a question you will have to answer for yourself.
The legal system has given its answer. Sarah Gregory, Dorothy Epps’s granddaughter, had a different one. James Edward Barber is gone. Dorothy Epps has been gone since 2001. If you made it to the end of this video, thank you. This is not a simple case, and I appreciate you taking the time to sit with the complexity of it. If you have thoughts, whatever they are, drop them in the comments.
These are the kinds of cases that deserve real discussion. Subscribe if you want more in-depth case coverage like this, and I’ll see you in the next one.
