Alabama’s 2nd application of nitrogen gas raises questions about future use of method

Before Alan Miller became the nation’s leader Second person to be executed with nitrogen gasMen living on Alabama’s main death row gathered to discuss how to stay calm.

That’s according to executive director Esther Brown. Abolition of Death Penalty Hope ProjectA group led by incarcerated organizers. Brown’s phone rings every day with calls from people incarcerated and on death row.

He said the mood was “very sad, very tense” as Alabama prepared to use a new method to execute Miller, while the state continued to have its busiest year in terms of executions since 2011. The Yellowhammer State is poised to lead the nation. in this year’s executions Data from the Death Penalty Information Center.

“Of course we’re not doing well,” Brown said. “You know, it’s just…incomprehensible.”

Alabama implemented plans to execute Miller on the evening of September 26; It was a move that sparked outrage and upset among death penalty opponents. It also raised questions about the possible future. controversial execution method In the Gulf South, he highlights Alabama’s increasingly unconventional use of the death penalty.

Alabama remains the only state to test the nitrogen gas method, but reports indicate that Mississippi, Louisiana and Oklahoma have legalized its use.

As Alabama charts this new course for execution methods, William Berry, a law professor and associate dean at the University of Mississippi who writes frequently about capital punishment, said eyewitness accounts show nitrogen gas executions are “much more brutal and cruel” than imagined. .

“This is similar to the same problems you encounter with electrocution, in terms of brutality and unintended consequences,” he said. “I wonder to what extent this will catch on and whether states will start doing this on a regular basis.”

Nitrogen gas executions came into play in response to the availability of and challenges to the drugs used in lethal injections, Berry said. He added that other scientists have written that injection protocols were developed in part because of unpleasant effects associated with the electric chair, such as the smell of burning flesh.

In January, Alabama’s attorney general touted nitrogen gas, saying the “proven method offers a blueprint for other states.” He reaffirmed his position in a statement after Miller’s execution. His staff did not comply with a recent interview request.

Marshall’s statement that night read: “Tonight, despite misinformation campaigns by political activists, out-of-state advocates, and biased media, the State has proven once again that nitrogen hypoxia is both humane and effective.”

“Miller’s execution was as expected and without incident.”

Method probably ‘dead in the water’

However Pastor Jeff Hoodan activist and spiritual advisor to people sentenced to death in several states, said he thought the method was probably “unsolved” and unlikely to become commonplace elsewhere.

He noted similarities in eyewitness accounts between the second nitrogen gas execution and the first execution of Kenny Smith in January. he personally witnessed. Witnesses to the first nitrogen execution described a protracted process that left Smith convulsing and writhing.

“I could hear people in the witness room saying, ‘God, stop, stop, please stop,'” Hood said. “It was terrible.”

Condemnation came from every corner of the world, including a UN panel.turned into torture.” In JAMA, the journal of the American Medical Association, doctors from the University of California, San Francisco Hypoxia Research Laboratory say that hypoxia, meaning low oxygen levels, has inconsistent and “often distressing effects” on humans, such as a “feeling of suffocation,” and that extreme hypoxia has not been well studied in humans. because it causes this kind of stress.

They wrote that the accounts of Kenny Smith’s execution were “evidence that the nitrogen hypoxia method was inhumane.”

Media witnesses’ accounts of last month’s second nitrogen gas execution described Miller struggling against his restraints and looking out of breath before dying. It was announced that Miller, who was sentenced to death by shooting three people, died.

In Alabama, Carey Dale Grayson has the third application of gaseous nitrogen scheduled for November 21. go through procedural court challenges.

‘Going downwards’

Since Smith was executed in January and Louisiana legalized nitrogen gas executions, related issues in the area have begun to gain national attention this year. It sparked reaction from groups including Jewish advocates.

It is not yet clear how the outcome of two nitrogen gas executions in Alabama affects attitudes toward the method in Mississippi. A spokesman for the attorney general, who is no longer in the legislature, and the sponsor of the related bill did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.

In Louisiana, where executions with nitrogen gas were legalized earlier this year, Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement that she supports the bill that expands the state’s execution methods. He added that he would defend the law and that “crime victims and their families deserve justice.”

House Representative Nicholas Muscarello introduced the bill that would ultimately legalize nitrogen gas executions. He said in an interview that he had “no idea” in response to some of the criticism leveled at the method by advocates.

“At the end of the day, if it is deemed unconstitutional and challenged and upheld by the court, then I think that should be the alternative to lethal injection,” he said.

Questions regarding methods of executing someone also arose during this period an unusual recent increase in executions. That’s likely due to a combination of factors, including a backlog, the priorities of a small group of politicians and the dynamics of the U.S. Supreme Court, according to the University of Mississippi’s Berry.

But overall, he says, the use of the death penalty is rare.

“I think it’s trending downwards and slowly disappearing,” he added. “We’ll see if nitrogen hypoxia is something that actually accelerates or prolongs this decline.”

‘Memorized forever’

Miller’s execution galvanized death penalty opponents against the events in Alabama.

As the execution approached, rain-soaked defenders gathered on the Capitol steps in Montgomery; where 21-year-old TJ Riggs gave an emotional speech calling on state leadership to end the “barbaric suffocation” of Alabamians.

“How many more dates need to be etched forever in the memory of our community and the men in line?” said Riggs, Amnesty International’s death penalty abolition coordinator in Alabama.

The next evening, a small group of about nine people gathered to protest and hold a vigil just down the street from the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, where Smith was executed. The sun set over the gravel and grass-covered parking lot as they held signs or raised their hands in prayer.

Some, like social worker Tish Warr, wept openly. Warr said his mother was once imprisoned, and the family friend who walked her down the aisle at her wedding was once sentenced to death in Texas but was re-sentenced and released.

“I believe that every person, every person in the Department of Administrative Corrections, has a family and has an impact on the world,” he told a reporter. “And I believe that every person has the ability to change.”

The prison is located down a winding road, not easily visible from where protesters gathered.

Brown had previously said that the men at the prison that week gathered together in their typical tradition during execution week. These include sharing memories and prayers for the dying person, often with whom they have lived together for many years.

Miller was known as a quiet man who loved watching television. He had grown closer to Smith, the previous man executed by nitrogen gas, after both survived an earlier execution attempt by lethal injection.

Some were wearing the white clothes they usually wear on visits, Brown said. Then, while the executed person is being taken to death, the doors are knocked.

“They hit and kick the man so he can hear them and hear them,” he said. “And as a way to say, ‘We’re with you.'”

This story was created by: Gulf States Newsrooma collaboration between Mississippi Public Broadcasting, WBHM in alabama, WWNO And WRKF in Louisiana and NPR.