Alabama schedules fourth nitrogen gas execution amid debate over method

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama has scheduled its fourth execution by nitrogen gas as critics continue to argue the new method needs additional scrutiny.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Tuesday set a Feb. 7 execution date for Demetrius Terrence Frazier, 52. Her office said the execution will be carried out by nitrogen gas. It is the state’s first scheduled execution of 2025.

Frazier was convicted of killing Pauline Brown while burglarizing her Birmingham apartment in 1991. Prosecutors said Frazier, while in police custody in Detroit on an unrelated charged, confessed to raping and shooting Brown after stealing about $80 from her purse. A jury voted 10-2 that he receive a death sentence. A judge sentenced him to death.

Alabama last year became the first state to carry out an execution with nitrogen gas. Three inmates were put to death using the new method last year. The method involves placing a respirator gas mask over the person’s face to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death by lack of oxygen.

The state has maintained the new execution method causes a quick death while critics have said it does not work as the state promised.

Attorneys for Frazier have an ongoing federal lawsuit seeking to block the state from carrying out his execution unless the state makes changes to the protocol. His lawyers argued the nitrogen gas causes “conscious suffocation” and that earlier nitrogen executions did not result in swift unconsciousness and death.

“Conscious suffocation violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment because it superadds terror and pain,” attorneys for Frazier wrote in a November court filing. Media witnesses, including The Associated Press, described how the subjects shook on the gurney for the first minutes of their execution, followed by what appeared to be several minutes of periodic labored breaths with long pauses in between.

The state, which has maintained the movements are involuntary, has asked a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit, noting Alabama has carried out three executions with the new method, and that Frazier years ago had selected it as his preferred execution method.

“ADOC officials do not agree with Frazier that other inmates executed by nitrogen hypoxia suffered ‘terror and pain,’” lawyers for the state wrote in a Christmas Eve court filing.

Lethal injection remains Alabama’s primary execution method.

Alabama in 2018 became the third state to authorize the use of nitrogen gas to execute prisoners. Alabama gave inmates a brief window to select their preferred execution method. Frazier and other inmates selected nitrogen gas as their preferred execution method, but at the time the state had not developed procedures for using the gas to carry out an execution.

No other state has used nitrogen to carry out an execution.