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January 29, 2024

"Will other states replicate Alabama’s nitrogen execution?"

The question in the title of this post is the headline of this lengthy AP article.  I think an important related question in whether a new execution method might enable more states to increase the pace of executions (which have averaged less than two per month nationwide over the last decade after averaging double or triple that rate in prior decades).  Here are some excerpts from the AP piece:

Alabama’s first-ever use of nitrogen gas for an execution could gain traction among other states and change how the death penalty is carried out in the United States, much like lethal injection did more than 40 years ago, according to experts on capital punishment.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said Friday that the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith, a 58-year-old convicted of a 1988 murder-for-hire, went off as planned and his office is ready to help other states if they want to begin nitrogen executions. “Alabama has done it, and now so can you,” Marshall said at a news conference.

At least some prison officials in other states say they hope to closely analyze how the process worked in Alabama and whether to replicate it in their states. Oklahoma and Mississippi already have laws authorizing the use of nitrogen gas for executions, and some other states, including Nebraska, have introduced measures this year to add it as an option. “Our intentions are if this works and it’s humane and we can, absolutely we’ll want to use it,” said Steven Harpe, director of Oklahoma’s prison system....

Oklahoma was the first state to contemplate the use of nitrogen gas nearly a decade ago after the 2014 botched execution of Clayton Lockett who clenched his teeth, moaned and writhed on the gurney before a doctor noticed a problem with the intravenous line and the execution was called off before Lockett died, 43 minutes after the procedure began. A later investigation revealed the IV had become dislodged and the lethal chemicals were pumped into the tissue surrounding the injection site instead of into his bloodstream.

Numerous other states, including Alabama, have had problems for years administering lethal injection or obtaining the deadly drugs, particularly as manufacturers, many of them based in Europe, have objected to their drugs being used to kill people and prohibited their sale to corrections departments or stopped manufacturing them altogether.  Even as some death penalty states remain committed to pursuing the executions, capital punishment is undergoing a yearslong decline of use and support, and more Americans now believe the death penalty is being administered unfairly, according to a recent annual report.

A few recent related posts:

January 29, 2024 at 11:15 AM | Permalink

Comments

Kent Scheidegger, a brilliant and fair-minded man and an expert in criminal law, has been advocating the use of nitrogen gas for years. He's always worth listening to.

Posted by: Bill Otis | Jan 29, 2024 3:09:53 PM

I don't think Kent anticipated the guy holding his breath and deliberately thrashing about!!

Posted by: federalist | Jan 29, 2024 3:35:22 PM

federalist --

Bad news: They're going to try to frustrate the system right up to the end.
Good news: You can only hold your breath for so long.

The advantage of nitrogen (which is 78% of the air we breathe anyway) is that you still take full breaths; you don't feel like you're suffocating. But without oxygen, you just gradually lose consciousness.

Posted by: Bill Otis | Jan 29, 2024 4:21:53 PM

As you guessed, Bill, I had tongue firmly in cheek. And as I am sure Kent S. will recall, there was some defense attorney who counseled his client to fake pain as he was getting the big jab.

Justice was served--far too late--but it was served. Kudos to Governor Ivey for pushing this through. Too bad this guy couldn't take his death like a man.

Posted by: federalist | Jan 29, 2024 6:16:59 PM

Mr. Otis, one of these days, somebody could frame you in a capital murder case and railroad you to a death house that uses Kay Ivey's type of execution method. Then you would have to eat your words. I know it is highly unlikely that you would be framed for any heinous murder crime that would land you there, but it could happen. If it did, it might force you to rethink some of your ideas.

It's like the joke, "What is a liberal?" Answer, "It's a conservative who has been falsely railroaded to the death house without proper judicial procedure."

Posted by: william delzell | Jan 30, 2024 11:49:12 AM

william delzell --

Anyone can be framed and wrongly convicted, therefore the criminal justice system and criminal punishment must be abolished, because even 10 minutes an innocent person spends in prison is a wretched, irreversible loss, and thus a moral abomination.

That's your logic. Care to defend it?

P.S. Anyone who wants to frame me is, of course, free to try. We'll see whether it's the framer or the framee who winds up in the tank.

Posted by: Bill Otis | Jan 30, 2024 2:52:06 PM

So Bill Otis doesn't mind getting railroaded for capital murder if it should happen, God forbid!?

Posted by: william delzell | Jan 31, 2024 6:53:19 PM

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