Execution Will Go Forward Despite Plea From Victim's Family

Alabama is set to execute a man Thursday evening who was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend nearly three decades ago, despite a request from the victim’s family to spare his life, the AP reports. Joe Nathan James Jr. is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at 6pm CDT at a south Alabama prison. James was convicted and sentenced to death in the 1994 shooting death of Faith Hall, 26, in Birmingham. Hall's daughters have said they would rather James serve life in prison. But Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said Wednesday she planned to let the execution proceed.

Hall’s two daughters, who were 3 and 6 when their mother was killed, had said recently they would rather James serve life in prison. “I just feel like we can’t play God. We can’t take a life. And it’s not going to bring my mom back,” one of the daughters, Terryln Hall, told the AP in a recent telephone interview. “We thought about it and prayed about it, and we found it in ourselves to forgive him for what he did. We really wish there was something that we could do to stop it,” Hall had said, adding the road to forgiveness was long. But, Ivey told reporters Wednesday, “My staff and I have researched all the records and all the facts and there’s no reason to change the procedure or modify the outcome. The execution will go forward."

(More Alabama stories.)