Alabama executes man by nitrogen hypoxia for 1988 murder

The  20th Execution of 2025

The state of Alabama has executed Gregory Hunt by nitrogen hypoxia for the 1988 murder of Karen Lane, reported Montgomery Advertiser.

A doctor pronounced Hunt to dead at 6:26 p.m. June 10, 2025. His death marked Alabama's third execution of the year.

Overall, Hunt is the fifth person to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia in Alabama. The state executed its first inmate by nitrogen hypoxia in 2024. Across the globe, organizations, including the Vatican, have protested the use of nitrogen hypoxia in execution, calling it cruel and unusual punishment.

Execution timeline

In the execution chamber, there is a digital clock, but the seconds are not visible. The following times are approximate.

5:52 p.m. The curtains to the death chamber were opened. Hunt was wrapped in a white sheet and strapped to a gurney. A mask was affixed to his face.

5:54 p.m. Hunt declined to give any last words. He made what appeared to be a peace sign with his left hand.

5:56 p.m. Hunt began taking deep breaths.

5:57 p.m. He began gasping and lifted his head. His entire body began convulsing.

5:59 p.m. Hunt turned his head and then lifted his head. Hunt's head fell back, and he groaned loudly.

6 p.m. Hunt moved his head and gasped. He continued intermittently gasping for the next several minutes.

6:04 p.m. Hunt appeared to take his last breath.

6:19 p.m. Hunt had remained still for the past 15 minutes. His left fist remained clenched. The curtains to the death chamber were closed.

Victim's family: 'End of a nightmare'

John Hamm, the Alabama Department of Corrections commissioner, defended nitrogen hypoxia as a humane way to execute people in Alabama.

Hamm said that five of Lane's family members witnessed the execution, and Hamm read a statement from her family.

"... Make no mistake, this night is not about the life of Greg Hunt," the family said in the statement. "This night is about the horrific death of Karen Sanders Lane, whose life was so savagely taken from her. Karen was shown no mercy. She was not given a second chance. Karen was shown no grace. This is also not about closure or victory. This night represents justice and the end of a nightmare that has coursed through our family for 37 long years."

Gov. Kay Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall released statements in support of Lane and her family.

“Decades ago, Karen Lane, at only 32 years old, experienced unimaginable final hours of her young life," Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement. "Tonight, the state carried out the lawfully imposed punishment for Gregory Hunt, who is undeniably guilty.

"And after his last-minute attempts to evade justice, he has faced the consequences of his evil crimes against Karen Lane, actions he has admitted to, even in a letter to the victim’s heartbroken father. Alabama stands with Karen Lane, and we pray her loved ones can finally find peace and closure.”

Marshall called Hunt's execution long overdue and expressed his confidence in Hunt's guilt.

“Karen deserves more than silence," Marshall said in a statement. "She deserves to be remembered for who she was, and yet some have made this case about her killer, barely mentioning her name. That is not justice. That is a disgrace. Karen Lane was a daughter and a sister. She was a human being. And tonight, we honor her by speaking the truth and by refusing to let it be buried under political theater.”

On the day of Hunt's execution, he was visited by two of his attorneys. He ate a breakfast of biscuits, eggs, oatmeal and fruit punch and a lunch of bologna, carrots, black-eyed peas, a roll, rice and gravy and fruit punch. Hunt refused a dinner and did not request any special items.

He had no phone calls June 10 and had no witnesses to his death.

More: James Osgood Execution Alabama executes James Osgood for 2010 rape and murder

The death of Karen Lane

Hunt beat Lane to death Aug. 2, 1988 in her home in Cordova. He was charged with sexual abuse, burglary and capital murder.

Hunt admitted murdering Lane but denied that he sexually abused her, even filing a final appeal May 23, claiming he did not sexually abuse Lane. The appeal requested a stay in his execution to allow the court time to process his argument.

Court documents show Hunt beat Lane with his hands, feet and a bar stool. She had 62 individual external injuries to her body. Internally, Lane had more than 20 fractures to her ribs and rib cage, a broken sternum, a lacerated liver and injuries to her aorta.

She died of blunt force trauma and bruising of the brain.

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Alabama carries out another execution using nitrogen gas

 The 3rd Execution of 2025

The state of Alabama executed Demetrius Terrence Frazier by nitrogen gas on February 6, 2025 for the rape and murder of Pauline Brown in Birmingham in 1991, reported the Alabama Reflector.

Frazier, 52, the fourth person the state has executed by nitrogen gas, was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m., according to Gov. Kay Ivey’s office.

“First of all, I want to apologize to the friends and family of Pauline Brown, what happened to her should never have happened,” Frazier said when he made his final statement. “I want to apologize to the Black community.”

Frazier also criticized Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for not intervening in his case. Frazier was transferred to Alabama in 2011 while serving a life sentence in Michigan for the 1992 murder of Crystal Kendrick, 14. His legal team had urged Whitmer to take custody of his case and have him transferred back to the state for the crimes he committed in Michigan. Whitmer did not intervene.

A member of the Corrections staff adjusted Frazier’s mask at about 6:10 p.m. and the nitrogen gas began to flow a few minutes afterward. Media witnesses reported that Frazier struggled to breathe for several minutes during the execution.

At one point in the execution, Frazier lifted his legs and his body twitched, according to media witnesses. That is similar to what other witnesses observed from the three other executions that the state carried out using nitrogen gas.

Witnesses said that they observed Frazier take his final breath at about 6:20 p.m.

“It went according to plan like our protocol says,” ADOC Commissioner John Hamm said at a news conference following the execution.

The state executed Kenneth Eugene Smith by nitrogen gas in January 2024. Alan Eugene Miller was put to death under the method in September. Carey Dale Grayson followed in November.

“In Alabama, we enforce the law,” Ivey said in a statement Thursday evening. “You don’t come to our state and mess with our citizens and get away with it.”

The governor said that justice was carried out on behalf of Brown and her loved ones.

“I pray for her family that all these years later, they can continue healing and have assurance that Demetrius Frazier cannot harm anyone else,” Ivey said.

Frazier was convicted of Kendrick’s death in 1993 and sentenced to life in prison. An Alabama  jury convicted Frazier of capital murder in 1996 and recommended he be put to death by a vote of 10-2. While arguing that Frazier should be returned to Michigan, Frazier’s legal team also argued the nitrogen gas protocol violated Frazier’s Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment, citing the distress that media witnesses reported among the men who had previously been subjected to it.

The federal courts rejected both arguments. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said they would not ask for Frazier to be returned to their state.

Frazier’s family and supporters petitioned Whitmer to intervene. Frazier’s mother Carol penned a letter that requested Whitmer get involved, and a petition collected more than 4,000 signatures.

“We are disappointed that Michigan chose to ignore requests to intercede, to ignore its own history, and failed to have Mr. Frazier returned to Michigan to complete his life sentences,” Frazier’s legal team said in a statement after Frazier’s execution Thursday. “We are disappointed that Gov. Ivey has not granted clemency, especially under these uniquely unfair and painful circumstances.  Martin Luther King, Jr. said ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ Tonight, we grieve for everyone.”

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Alabama carries out third execution using nitrogen gas

The 22nd Execution of 2024

Alabama death row inmate Carey Dale Grayson on November 21, 2024 became the third inmate in the U.S. to be executed by nitrogen gas, reported the USA Today.

Grayson, 50, was executed for the torture, bludgeoning and mutilation of Vickie Lynn DeBlieux on Feb. 21, 1994. Deblieux, 37, was hitchhiking from southeastern Tennessee to visit her mother in West Monroe, Louisiana, when Grayson, then 19, and three other teens picked her up along and soon after proceeded to kill her, court records say. He was pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m., according to the Alabama Department of Corrections.

The execution is the 22nd in the U.S. this year and the sixth in Alabama, which has put three of the men to death using nitrogen gas, a controversial method that some witnesses describe as torture.

Republican Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement that "an execution by nitrogen hypoxia bares no comparison to the death and dismemberment Ms. DeBlieux experienced."

"I pray for her loved ones that they may continue finding closure and healing," she said.

Jodi DeBlieux Haley, who was 12 when her mother was murdered, talked about what a special person she was at a news conference following the execution.

"She was unique. She was spontaneous. She was wild. She was funny," Haley said. "She was gorgeous to boot. I don't know what it is like to have a mother while going through life. Graduation, marriage, children, hurts and joys. I've had to experience life without her presence because all those opportunities were stolen from her."

Here's what you need to know about Grayson's execution, including his last meal and last words, and why Haley is opposed to the death penalty despite the devastating loss of her mother.

What were Carey Dale Grayson's last words?

Unlike many inmates who deliver last words that are apologetic to their victims’ families and loving to their own families, Grayson cussed and flipped his middle fingers.

When given the chance to say his last words, he said: “Yeah … you need to (expletive) off!” His microphone was quickly cut off and the execution process began.

When the nitrogen began flowing, Grayson tightly clenched his hands, took deep gasps, shook his head vigorously and pulled against his restraints. He appeared to lose consciousness at 6:18 p.m., about six minutes after the gas began flowing.

Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm said after the execution that Grayson's movements at the beginning of the process appeared to be "for show."

What was Carey Dale Grayson's last meal?

Grayson's last meal was soft tacos, beef burritos, tostada, chips, guacamole, and Mountain Dew Blast.

What was Carey Dale Grayson convicted of?

On Feb. 21, 1994, DeBlieux was dropped off by a friend in Chattanooga near Interstate 59, where she began catching rides southwest. At some point, Grayson − who was 19 − and three other teens picked DeBlieux up along a Jefferson County interstate in Alabama, about 15 miles northeast of Birmingham.

The teens stopped at a wooded area on Bald Mountain, and proceeded to beat, stomp and kick DeBlieux. Testimony showed Grayson and another teen stood on her throat to kill her.

Her body was eventually tossed off a cliff but the teens returned later and mutilated her corpse, cutting the body at least 180 times, removing a portion of a lung and cutting off her fingers, court records show.

The teens became suspects in the murder when one of the boys showed one of DeBlieux's fingers to a friend.

In addition to Grayson, a jury convicted Kenny Loggins, Trace Duncan and Louis Mangione in the murder. Duncan, Loggins and Mangione had their death sentences reversed and were each given life in prison without the possibility of parole. The move came in 2005 after the U.S. Supreme Court banned the execution of people who were younger than 18 when they committed a crime.

Victim's daughter condemns 'state-sanctioned homicide'

While losing her mother ripped Haley's life apart, she doesn't lay all the blame on Grayson, saying that he faced severe physical and sexual abuse as a child and was still a boy when he was thrown out on the street.

“I have to wonder how all of this slips through the cracks of the justice system," she said. "Because society failed this man as a child and my family suffered because of it."

She said she's opposed to the death penalty because "it's not right" and that "murdering inmates under the guise of justice needs to stop."

“State-sanctioned homicide needs never be listed as cause of death,” she said. “I don’t know who we think we are. To be in such a modern time, we regress when we implement this punishment. I hope and pray my mother’s death will invoke these changes and give her senseless death some purpose."

More about Carey Dale Grayson's execution method

Grayson was killed by nitrogen hypoxia, which was used for the first time in the U.S. when Alabama executed Kenneth Eugene Smith in January. Smith’s execution by the method drew national and international scorn and media attention, including a protest from the Vatican.

Smith appeared to writhe and convulse on the gurney for at least four minutes during the execution. State and prison systems' officials had said before the execution that Smith should lose consciousness “within seconds,” and be dead within minutes once the gas started flowing into the full-face mask Smith wore.

Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm called Smith’s execution “textbook,” in a news conference about half an hour after the Smith died.

Alan Eugene Miller's September execution was the second by nitrogen gas in Alabama.

With the nitrogen hypoxia method, the condemned breathes pure nitrogen through a mask that displaces oxygen in their system. Proponents claim it is an almost instant and painless method. Opponents claim it amounts to torture.

Who was Carey Dale Grayson?

Grayson had bipolar disorder and his mother died when he was 3 after battling mental illness, according to court records.

A forensic psychologist testified that Grayson was "in a manic state" during the murder but that he "did know the difference between right and wrong and was able to appreciate the nature and quality or wrongfulness of his acts, court records say.

In a police interview, Grayson described the younger teens as committing the most heinous acts during the crime. When asked about why they killed DeBlieux, court records say, he told police that he didn't know and that "it was not his problem.” 

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Alabama conducts second execution by nitrogen gas in the U.S.

 The 18th Execution of 2024

Alabama conducted the second execution in the United States using nitrogen gas on September 29, 2024, with media witnesses describing the prisoner shaking and gasping for several minutes before dying on the gurney, reported The New York Times.

Alan E. Miller, who was convicted in the 1999 murders of three men he believed were spreading rumors about him, was pronounced dead at 6:38 p.m. Central time in Atmore, Ala.

Reporters who witnessed the execution said that Mr. Miller shook on the gurney for about two minutes and appeared to gasp periodically for roughly six minutes as the nitrogen gas flowed.

The state prisons commissioner, John Hamm, responded that officials had been expecting “involuntary body movements as the body is depleted of oxygen.” He said the execution had gone “just as we had planned.” He declined to say whether Mr. Miller had been sedated.

Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement that Mr. Miller had acted with “pure evil” in carrying out the murders, and she declared that “justice was finally served for these three victims.”

In January, the state carried out what was described as the first nitrogen execution anywhere in the world, and other states have said they are looking into doing so as well as they continue to experience problems obtaining lethal injection drugs.

Several witnesses to that execution said that the prisoner, Kenneth Smith, shook violently as the nitrogen gas was administered and then writhed before his body eventually stopped moving. Witnesses told The New York Times that the gurney had shaken in the execution chamber and that Mr. Smith had appeared to be gasping for air.

But the state’s attorney general, Steve Marshall, has hailed the execution, calling it “textbook” and saying that Alabama had become a pioneer that other states could follow. “Alabama has done it, and now so can you,” he said.

Nitrogen, a colorless, odorless gas, is not harmful in itself and makes up about 78 percent of the air. But when it is used in an execution, a prisoner is strapped to a gurney and a mask is placed over the head, after which a stream of pure nitrogen gas, absent life-sustaining oxygen, produces a fatal but supposedly painless form of suffocation known as nitrogen hypoxia. The method has been used in some medically assisted suicides.

Deanna Smith, wife of Kenneth Smith, was comforted by Jeff Hood after the execution of Mr. Smith in January in Atmore, Ala.Credit...Edmund D. Fountain for The New York Times

Lawyers for the state said Mr. Smith might have moved on the gurney during the execution in January because he tried to hold his breath once the nitrogen had begun flowing.

Thursday’s execution was the second time that the state had tried to carry out the death penalty for Mr. Miller, 59. In September 2022, Mr. Miller fought his planned execution by lethal injection, arguing in court that he had opted for a nitrogen execution but that the state had lost his request.

The U.S. Supreme Court sided with the state, allowing the lethal injection to proceed, and Mr. Miller was taken to the execution chamber. Workers spent more than an hour unsuccessfully trying to insert an intravenous line into his veins, and the execution was called off sometime before midnight, when his death warrant expired.

Later that year, after several problems with executions, Governor Ivey temporarily stopped all executions in the state and called for the prison system to review its procedures. A handful of changes were made, including lengthening by 12 hours the window during which officials can carry out death warrants. Executions resumed in 2023.

Death penalty opponents have warned of a litany of potential problems with using nitrogen gas, including the possibility that the prisoner could suffer a seizure, vomit under the mask or experience other problems if the mask’s seal were broken, diluting the nitrogen and prolonging the prisoner’s suffering.

Maya Foa, an executive director of Reprieve US, a nonprofit that targets human rights issues, said Alabama’s decision to execute Mr. Miller a second time was part of a long, recent history of problematic attempts to carry out the death penalty, both by lethal injection and nitrogen.

“These methods of execution have two things in common: They are human experimentation that risks causing horrific pain, and failed attempts to hide the violent reality of the state taking a human life,” Ms. Foa said.

Across the United States, 18 people have been executed this year. Seven more are scheduled to die in five states before the end of the year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. On Thursday, Oklahoma executed Emmanuel Littlejohn, who was convicted in a 1992 convenience store robbery in which the store owner was fatally shot. A state parole board had recommended that he be granted clemency, but Gov. Kevin Stitt rejected the advice and allowed the execution to go forward.

Executions have been on a general decline since 1999, when a modern peak of 98 were carried out, and death sentences have dropped dramatically as well.

This month so far, five people have been executed in five states. South Carolina carried out the state’s first execution in more than a decade last week, with a lethal injection to Freddie Owens. And Missouri and Texas each executed a person on Tuesday.

This week’s execution of Marcellus Williams in Missouri took place over the objections of the local prosecutor’s office that had convicted him of murder. The prosecutor there had argued in recent months that Mr. Williams could be innocent and that his prosecution had been mishandled.

In Alabama, Mr. Miller’s lawyers argued in court earlier this year that it was “difficult to overstate the mental and physical anguish” that he had endured during the failed attempt in 2022. They said men in scrubs had tried unsuccessfully to insert intravenous lines in his arms, his hands and one of his feet.

They asked in that lawsuit that a medical professional be present during the nitrogen execution and hold the mask on Mr. Miller’s face. It was not clear whether the state had agreed to that, as a settlement reached last month was confidential.

Mr. Miller was convicted in the murders of three men on Aug. 5, 1999, at two Alabama businesses where he had worked, a plumbing company and a warehouse operation that sold oxygen canisters. He was 34 at the time of the shootings. The victims were Lee Holdbrooks, 32; Christopher Yancey, 28; and Terry Jarvis, 39.

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Alabama carries out first ever execution with nitrogen gas

 The 1st Execution of 2024

Smith appeared to remain conscious for several minutes. For at least two minutes, he appeared to shake and writhe on the gurney, sometimes pulling against the restraints.

Alabama executed a convicted murderer with nitrogen gas on January 25, 2024, the first execution of 2024.  The state put him to death with a first-of-its-kind method that once again placed the U.S. at the forefront of the debate over capital punishment, reported The Associated Press. The state said the method would be humane, but critics called it cruel and experimental.

Officials said Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, was pronounced dead at 8:25 p.m. at an Alabama prison after breathing pure nitrogen gas through a face mask to cause oxygen deprivation. It marked the first time that a new execution method has been used in the United States since lethal injection, now the most commonly used method, was introduced in 1982.

The execution took about 22 minutes from the time between the opening and closing of the curtains to the viewing room. Smith appeared to remain conscious for several minutes. For at least two minutes, he appeared to shake and writhe on the gurney, sometimes pulling against the restraints. That was followed by several minutes of heavy breathing, until breathing was no longer perceptible.

In a final statement, Smith said, “Tonight Alabama causes humanity to take a step backwards. ... I’m leaving with love, peace and light.”

He made the “I love you sign” with his hands toward family members who were witnesses. “Thank you for supporting me. Love, love all of you,” Smith said.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said the execution was justice for the murder-for-hire killing of 45-year-old Elizabeth Sennett in 1988.

“After more than 30 years and attempt after attempt to game the system, Mr. Smith has answered for his horrendous crimes,” Ivey said in a statement. “I pray that Elizabeth Sennett’s family can receive closure after all these years dealing with that great loss.”

Mike Sennett, the victim’s son, said Thursday night that Smith “had been incarcerated almost twice as long as I knew my mom.”

 “Nothing happened here today is going to bring Mom back. It’s kind of a bittersweet day. We are not going to be jumping around, whooping and holler, hooray and all that,” he said. “I’ll end by saying Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett got her justice tonight.”

The state had previously attempted to execute Smith in 2022, but the lethal injection was called off at the last minute because authorities couldn’t connect an IV line.

The execution came after a last-minute legal battle in which his attorneys contended the state was making him the test subject for an experimental execution method that could violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Federal courts rejected Smith’s bid to block it, with the latest ruling coming Thursday night from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who along with two other liberal justices dissented, wrote, “Having failed to kill Smith on its first attempt, Alabama has selected him as its ‘guinea pig’ to test a method of execution never attempted before. The world is watching.”

The majority justices did not issue any statements.

The state had predicted the nitrogen gas would cause unconsciousness within seconds and death within minutes. State Attorney General Steve Marshall said late Thursday that nitrogen gas “was intended to be — and has now proved to be — an effective and humane method of execution.”

Asked about Smith’s shaking and convulsing on the gurney, Alabama corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm said they appeared to be involuntary movements.

 “That was all expected and was in the side effects that we’ve seen or researched on nitrogen hypoxia,” Hamm said. “Nothing was out of the ordinary from what we were expecting.”

Smith’s spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeff Hood, said the execution did not match the state attorney general’s prediction in court filings that Smith would lose consciousness in seconds followed by death within minutes.

“We didn’t see somebody go unconscious in 30 seconds. What we saw was minutes of someone struggling for their life,” said Hood, who attended the execution.

Some doctors and organizations had expressed alarm about the method, and Smith’s attorneys asked the Supreme Court to halt the execution to review claims that it violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment and deserved more legal scrutiny before it was used on a person.

“There is little research regarding death by nitrogen hypoxia. When the State is considering using a novel form of execution that has never been attempted anywhere, the public has an interest in ensuring the State has researched the method adequately and established procedures to minimize the pain and suffering of the condemned person,” Smith’s attorneys wrote.

In her dissent, Sotomayor said Alabama has shrouded its execution protocol in secrecy, releasing only a heavily redacted version. She added that Smith should have been allowed to obtain evidence about the protocol and to proceed with his legal challenge.

“That information is important not only to Smith, who has an extra reason to fear the gurney, but to anyone the State seeks to execute after him using this novel method,” Sotomayor wrote.

“Twice now this Court has ignored Smith’s warning that Alabama will subject him to an unconstitutional risk of pain,” Sotomayor wrote. “I sincerely hope that he is not proven correct a second time.”

Justice Elena Kagan wrote a separate dissent and was joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

In his final hours, Smith met with family members and his spiritual adviser, according to a prison spokesperson.

Smith ate a last meal of T-bone steak, hash browns, toast and eggs slathered in A1 steak sauce, Hood said by telephone before the execution was carried out.

“He’s terrified at the torture that could come. But he’s also at peace. One of the things he told me is he is finally getting out,” Hood said.

The execution protocol called for Smith to be strapped to a gurney in the execution chamber — the same one where he was strapped down for several hours during the lethal injection attempt — and a “full facepiece supplied air respirator” to be placed over his face. After he had a chance to make a final statement, the warden, from another room, was to activate the nitrogen gas. It would be administered through the mask for at least 15 minutes or “five minutes following a flatline indication on the EKG, whichever is longer,” according to the state protocol.

Hamm, the corrections commissioner, confirmed afterward that the gas was flowing for about 15 minutes.

Sant’Egidio Community, a Vatican-affiliated Catholic charity based in Rome, had urged Alabama not to go through with the execution, saying the method is “barbarous” and “uncivilized” and would bring “indelible shame” to the state. And experts appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council cautioned they believe the execution method could violate the prohibition on torture.

Some states are looking for new ways to execute people because the drugs used in lethal injections have become difficult to find. Three states — Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma — have authorized nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method, but no state had attempted to use the untested method until now.

Smith’s attorneys had raised concerns that he could choke to death on his own vomit as the nitrogen gas flows. The state made a last-minute procedural change so he would not be allowed food in the eight hours beforehand.

Sennett was found dead in her home March 18, 1988, with eight stab wounds in the chest and one on each side of her neck. Smith was one of two men convicted in the killing. The other, John Forrest Parker, was executed in 2010.

Prosecutors said they were each paid $1,000 to kill Sennett on behalf of her pastor husband, who was deeply in debt and wanted to collect on insurance. The husband, Charles Sennett Sr., killed himself when the investigation focused on him as a suspect, according to court documents.

Smith’s 1989 conviction was overturned, but he was convicted again in 1996. The jury recommended a life sentence by 11-1, but a judge overrode that and sentenced him to death. Alabama no longer allows a judge to override a jury’s death penalty decision.

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Alabama gears up for dangerous nitrogen hypoxia execution

It is not unusual for the rollout of a new execution method to be bumpy, but what is happening with Alabama’s effort to begin using nitrogen hypoxia is setting a new standard for incompetence and disarray in the death penalty system, reported Slate. After botching three lethal injection executions last year, state officials have sent mixed signals about whether the state would be ready to use nitrogen hypoxia when it plans to execute James Barber on July 20.

Barber was convicted of the 2001 beating death of 75-year-old Dorothy Epps. Prosecutors said Barber confessed to killing Epps with a claw hammer. Jurors voted 11–1 to recommend a death sentence, which the judge then imposed.

Barber’s would be the first execution after Gov. Kay Ivey paused executions for the state Department of Corrections to review execution procedures. In February, she announced that the review was finished and that the state was ready to get back in the execution business.

On June 20, the state attorney general’s office seemed to signal that Alabama could use nitrogen hypoxia to execute Barber in its reply to a suit he brought seeking an order to stop the state from putting him to death by lethal injection. Barber asked the court to require Alabama to “carry out the execution of Mr. Barber only by nitrogen hypoxia.” His lawsuit said that the method was a “readily available alternative.”

According to an article in Reason, “Barber wants to die by nitrogen hypoxia—which involves suffocating the inmate in a gas chamber by increasing the proportion of nitrogen in the air—rather than lethal injection … because [he claims] it will be more humane than death by lethal injection, especially considering the state’s recent record.”

In its brief in Barber’s suit, the attorney general’s office told the court that if it issues an injunction in this case, the judge should  limit its “scope so as to permit Barber’s July 20, 2023, execution to be conducted by nitrogen hypoxia.” However, a spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Corrections quickly confused matters by saying that the department was not ready to carry out a nitrogen hypoxia execution and would not be by July 20. 

 “The Alabama Department of Corrections has completed many of the preparations necessary for conducting executions by nitrogen hypoxia,” the spokesperson continued. “The protocol for carrying out executions by this method is not yet complete. Once the nitrogen hypoxia protocol is complete, ADOC personnel will need sufficient time to be thoroughly trained before an execution can be conducted using this method.”

Further muddying the issue, the commissioner of ADOC, John Hamm, when speaking to reporters after a legislative committee meeting, referred questions about the protocol to the attorney general’s office. “You’d have to ask the AG’s office on the actual protocol,” Hamm said. So, is Alabama ready to carry out executions using nitrogen hypoxia, or not?

Nitrogen hypoxia’s on-again, off-again status in Alabama began in 2018 when it became the third state to add it to its menu of execution options. At the time, state Sen. Trip Pittman, who sponsored the nitrogen hypoxia legislation, made familiar promises and followed the usual playbook used when officials propose new methods of execution.

Echoing what proponents had said about the electric chair the 1880s, the gas chamber in the 1920s, and lethal injection in the 1970s, Pittman said, “I believe [nitrogen hypoxia] is a more humane option … One that is less invasive, and one that I think needs to be an option for the condemned.” He compared the method to the way that passengers on a plane pass out when the aircraft depressurizes.

Alabama was following the lead of Oklahoma, which in 2015 became to first state to authorize execution by nitrogen hypoxia. Mississippi followed suit in 2017. But right from the start, there was little to inspire confidence that this method would deliver the humane executions that other execution methods have also falsely promised.

The idea of using nitrogen hypoxia in executions came from Michael Copeland, then an assistant professor of criminal justice at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma, who co-authored a white paper on the subject with two of his colleagues at the university. Even though neither he nor his co-authors had any medical training or scientific expertise, Copeland proposed it to Mike Christian, a state legislator who had been a high school classmate.

According to a report from the Equal Justice Initiative, Oklahoma state Rep. Mike Christian became interested in the method after he “reportedly saw a documentary about killing humans that included a segment on nitrogen inhalation.” The process, Christian claimed, “is fast and painless. It’s foolproof.”

But so far, none of the states that adopted it have actually used nitrogen hypoxia in an execution. And even if they were ready to do so, it is not clear that they will be able to obtain the nitrogen needed to carry it out.

The Equal Justice Initiative further reports that “Airgas, an industrial gas distributor that is one of Alabama’s largest suppliers, has announced it will not supply gas for executions. ‘Supplying nitrogen for the purpose of human execution is not consistent with our company values,’ the company said in a statement.”

The company’s CEO added that Airgas is not “working with the state of Alabama, or anyone else, to develop nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method.”

Thus it is not surprising that Alabama has had trouble developing and finalizing a protocol for executions by nitrogen hypoxia. And unlike other methods, any error in the process could be fatal for anyone participating in or witnessing those executions, so getting the protocol right is especially high-stakes.

As Robert Dunham, who is the former executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, warns, “Nitrogen is colorless, and it is odorless, and the same thing that led the Oklahoma legislature to think that this would be swift and painless—the fact that people were unaware that they were being poisoned at depth or at altitude—those very same factors could make it potentially lethal if gas leaks into areas where the execution team was.”

Or as Joel Zivot, an expert on methods of execution, puts it: Execution by nitrogen hypoxia “may be bloodless, but it won’t be simple.”

There is no room for error in executions by nitrogen hypoxia, which cannot be reassuring in a state like Alabama, with its ghoulish history of botched executions. The state’s recent bureaucratic snafus and grotesquely comedic miscommunications between the agencies responsible for carrying out its executions only add to the sense that if Alabama really were to use it in Barber’s execution, it could turn into a tragedy for him and for everyone who so casually and irresponsibly touted it as a fix for this country’s broken death penalty system.

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Alabama inmate wants executed by unproven nitrogen hypoxia

Lawyers for an inmate who is soon set to die in Alabama are arguing he should be executed by the state’s newly approved, but not yet tested, method instead of lethal injection after one controversial execution and two failed execution attempts on other inmates last year, reported AL.com.

James Barber, 64, is currently on death row at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. His execution day is approaching, but hasn’t been formally set to a single date: A new Alabama Supreme Court rule allows for an execution warrant to be issued for a “time frame” rather than a single day, allowing the governor to choose the timing of an execution. It’s a shift from how the process formerly worked, when the high court set a 24-hour period for executions. If an execution didn’t happen by midnight on that specified date, the execution had to be called off.

The warrant issued for Barber says Gov. Kay Ivey will set a time frame for Barber’s lethal injection “which shall not begin less than 30 days” from the May 3 order. It’s unclear how long the “time frame” will last, but the order means it must begin sometime after June 2.

The governor has not yet announced the time frame for Barber’s upcoming execution.

Barber was convicted in Madison County for the 2001 slaying of 75-year-old Dorothy Epps. Barber knew Epps because he had previously dated her daughter and he had done home repair work for her. Epps was beaten to death with Barber’s fists and a claw hammer in her Harvest home, according to court records. She suffered multiple skull fractures, head lacerations, brain bleeding, and rib fractures.

In a lawsuit filed by Barber’s attorneys in the U.S. Middle District of Alabama last week, Barber’s lawyers argue he should be executed by nitrogen hypoxia - suffocation on pure nitrogen - instead of lethal injection. The lawsuit calls the method a “readily available alternative.”

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Alabama may soon be using nitrogen gas for executions

The head of Alabama’s prison system said recently that a protocol for using nitrogen gas to carry out executions should be finished this year, reported The Associated Press.

“We’re close. We’re close,” Alabama Commissioner John Hamm said of the new execution method that the state has been working to develop for several years.

He said the protocol “should be” finished by the end of the year. Hamm made the comment in response to a question from The Associated Press about the status of the new execution method. Once the protocol is finished, there would be litigation over the untested execution method before the state attempts to use it.

Nitrogen hypoxia is a proposed execution method in which death would be caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, thereby depriving them of the oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions. Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississippi have authorized the use of nitrogen hypoxia, but it has never been used to carry out a death sentence.

Alabama lawmakers in 2018 approved legislation that authorized nitrogen hypoxia as an alternate execution method. Supporters said the state needed a new method as lethal injection drugs became difficult to obtain. Lawmakers theorized that death by nitrogen hypoxia could be a simpler and more humane execution method. But critics have likened the untested method to human experimentation.

The state has disclosed little information about the new execution method. The Alabama Department of Corrections told a federal judge in 2021 that it had completed a “system” to use nitrogen gas but did not describe it.

Although lethal injection remains the primary method for carrying out death sentences, the legislation gave inmates a brief window to select nitrogen as their execution method. A number of inmates selected nitrogen.

Hamm also said a review of the state’s execution procedures should be completed, “probably within the next month.”

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey requested a pause in executions to review procedures after lethal injections were halted. Ivey cited concerns for the victims and their families in ordering the review in Alabama.

“For the sake of the victims and their families, we’ve got to get this right,” Ivey said.

A group of faith leaders last week urged Ivey to authorize an independent review of execution procedures, as Oklahoma and Tennessee did after a series of failed lethal injections in those states.

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Oklahoma legislature passes nitrogen hypoxia as execution method

A bill allowing the use of nitrogen gas in executions is headed to the desk of Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, reported the Tulsa World.                                                                              
The Senate on Thursday passed House Bill 1879, by Rep. Mike Christian, R-Oklahoma City, and Sen. Anthony Sykes, R-Moore, by a vote of 41-0. The measure comes after last year’s execution of Clayton Lockett using a new, three-drug drug protocol.

The execution has been called a “procedural disaster” by an appellate court and thrust the state into the national spotlight after the inmate spent 43 minutes on the gurney before dying.

House Bill 1879 says that if lethal injection is held unconstitutional or otherwise unavailable, the execution should be carried out by nitrogen hypoxia.

Christian said the use of nitrogen gas is practical, efficient and humane.

“The process is fast and painless,” Christian said. “In fact, it is so painless that a person will pass out before they recognize they are in danger.”

Nitrogen gas has not been used to carry out an execution in the United States.

The measure retains lethal injection, electrocution and firing squads as forms of allowable executions.

“We don’t have a crystal ball, but we all know — and I think everyone here would agree — that lethal injection is on its way out,” Christian said. “It has become experimental.”

Oklahoma switched to a new drug in the three-drug cocktail after the original drug because unavailable. A lawsuit challenging the state’s new three-drug method is pending.

“Today, we are sending a message to the U.S. Supreme Court and the rest of the world that the people of Oklahoma realize that we have a problem and the people of Oklahoma have found a solution,” Christian said.

Christian said he expects other states to follow Oklahoma’s lead.

Meanwhile, the House on Thursday passed Senate Joint Resolution 31 by Sykes and Christian that would let people vote to affirm that the death penalty is not cruel and unusual punishment and that execution methods may be designated by the Legislature.

The measure passed by a vote of 80-10.

House Minority Leader Scott Inman, D-Del City, said the measure was the authors’ way of reaffirming the state’s position that Oklahomans are supportive of the death penalty, but it didn’t have any real significant legal effect.

“I do not think there is any danger whatsoever of the death penalty being overturned in Oklahoma, nor even at the federal level,” Inman said.

Sykes said he expects the constitutional amendment to overwhelmingly pass a vote of the people in November 2016.

That measure does not need Fallin’s signature, Sykes said.
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