Chattanooga Times Free Press

Alabama ‘close’ to finishing nitrogen execution protocol

- BY KIM CHANDLER

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The head of Alabama’s prison system said Wednesday that a protocol for using nitrogen gas to carry out executions should be finished this year.

“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.

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