Alabama modifies execution chamber for gas executions involving nitrogen hypoxia

Alabama is actively modifying its execution chamber to kill prisoners via nitrogen hypoxia, an untested method that would asphyxiate the condemned through a gas chamber or gas mask.

A federal judge last month ordered the Alabama Department of Corrections to provide information about the hypoxia protocol in an ongoing lawsuit filed by a man petitioning the court to have his spiritual advisor present at his execution.

"The ADOC is nearing completion of the initial physical build for the nitrogen hypoxia system and its safety measures. Once the build is completed, a safety expert will make a site visit to evaluate the system and look for any points of concern that need to be addressed," Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a Tuesday court filing.

ADOC on Wednesday declined to answer a number of questions regarding the "physical build" referenced in court documents, including whether it intends to use a gas chamber or a gas mask to administer an execution method that has yet to be tested on human beings.

"The ADOC’s nitrogen hypoxia execution protocol is still under development, and the physical building modifications to the execution chamber are still in process," the department said in a Wednesday statement. "Due to the fact those two items are not yet in a finalized state and potential security concerns exist, that is all we are able to share at this time."

Alabama passed nitrogen hypoxia legislation in 2018, one of only three states to legalize the method of execution. In theory, a condemned person would inhale pure nitrogen, which would asphyxiate them.

The legislation, which proponents argued offered a more humane method of execution, effectively ended an ongoing lawsuit over lethal injection in Alabama. The legislation provided people incarcerated on death row a short window in 2018 to opt in to the method.

But the new law codified a largely hypothetical method of execution. The method has never been tested on humans, and much of the scientific record on the subject comes from veterinary science or hazard investigations, where humans accidentally died in industrial accidents or similar situations.

In Oklahoma, nitrogen hypoxia executions have technically been legal since 2015, but last year the state said it would revert to lethal injections. In 2019, The Oklahoman reported multiple manufacturers declined to be involved in the execution process, with at least seven companies declining to sell the necessary "gas delivery device."

"The big issue with nitrogen hypoxia is it is experimental," said Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "We just have no idea whether it's going to work the way its proponents say it will. If it does, then there may be a viable alternative to lethal injection. If it doesn't, it may be just another method that was advertised as being humane that turns out not to be. It's completely unethical to experimentally kill someone, so we won't know. ... Nobody knows, nobody has indicated how its going to be carried out, though I suspect the death mask is more likely than a gas chamber. There was never any indication that Oklahoma intended to construct a gas chamber."

Multiple pharmaceutical companies have blocked purchases of lethal injection drugs in recent years amid growing opposition to the death penalty, leading some states to revert to alternate methods.

New legislation in South Carolina resurrected the firing squad, though the state hasn't killed a prisoner in a decade, according the NPR.

A Guardian investigation found Arizona recently purchased materials to kill condemned prisoners with cyanide gas, the same method used at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.

Arizona has "refurbished" an old gas chamber for the executions. Like Alabama, Arizona prisoners can choose between lethal injection or the gas chamber, though executions have been halted in the state for nearly a decade after a botched injection attempt.

Source: montgomeryadvertiser.com, Melissa Brown, June 10, 2021

🚩 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Lethal Injection, Electric Chair, or Firing Squad? An Inhumane Decision for Death Row Prisoners

South Carolina resumed executions with the firing squad killing of Brad Sigmon last month. Mikal Madhi’s execution date is days away. The curtain shrieked as it was yanked open to reveal a 67-year-old man tied to a chair. His arms were pulled uncomfortably behind his back. The red bull’s-eye target on his chest rose and fell as he desperately attempted to still his breathing. The man, Brad Sigmon, smiled at his attorney, Bo King, seated in the front row before guards placed a black bag over his head. King said Sigmon appeared to be trying his best to put on a brave face for those who had come to bear witness.

Florida executes Michael Tanzi

Florida on Tuesday executed a death row inmate described by one local detective as a "fledgling serial killer" for the murder of a beloved Miami Herald employee. Florida executed Michael Tanzi on Tuesday, 25 years after the murder of beloved Miami Herald employee Janet Acosta, who was attacked in broad daylight on her lunch break in 2000. Michael Tanzi, 48, was executed by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison in Raiford and pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. ET.

South Carolina | Man who ambushed off-duty cop to face firing squad in second execution of its kind

Mikal Mahdi, 48, who was found guilty of killing an off-duty police officer and a convenience store worker, is the second inmate scheduled to executed by South Carolina's new firing squad A murderer who ambushed and shot an off duty police officer eight times before burning his body in a killing spree is set to become the second person to die by firing squad. South Carolina's highest court has rejected the last major appeal from Mikal Mahdi, 41, who is to be put to death with three bullets to the heart at 6pm on April 11 at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia. Mahdi's lawyers said his original lawyers put on a shallow case trying to spare his life that didn't call on relatives, teachers or people who knew him and ignored the impact of weeks spent in solitary confinement in prison as a teen.

Arizona | The cruelty of isolation: There’s nothing ‘humane’ about how we treat the condemned

On March 19, I served as a witness to the execution of a man named Aaron Gunches, Arizona’s first since 2022. During his time on death row, he begged for death and was ultimately granted what is likely more appropriately described as an emotionless state-assisted suicide. This experience has profoundly impacted me, leading to deep reflection on the nature of death, humanity, and the role we play in our final moments. When someone is in the end stages of life, we talk about hospice care, comfort, care, easing suffering and humane death. We strive for a “good death” — a peaceful transition. I’ve seen good ones, and I’ve seen bad, unplanned ones.

Louisiana | Lawyers of Jessie Hoffman speak about their final moments before execution

As Louisiana prepared its first execution in 15 years, a team of lawyers from Loyola Law were working to save Jessie Hoffman’s life. “I was a young lawyer three years out of law school, and Jessie was almost finished with his appeals at that time, and my boss told me we needed to file something for Jessie because he’s in danger of being executed,” Kappel said. Kappel and her boss came up with a civil lawsuit to file that said since they wouldn’t give him a protocol for his execution, he was being deprived of due process, and the lawsuit was in the legal process for the next 10 years.

Afghanistan | Four men publicly executed by Taliban with relatives of victims shooting them 'six or seven times' at sport stadium

Four men have been publicly executed by the Taliban, with relatives of their victims shooting them several times in front of spectators at a sport stadium. Two men were shot around six to seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the centre of Afghanistan's Badghis province, witnesses told an AFP journalist in the city. The men had been 'sentenced to retaliatory punishment' for shooting other men, after their cases were 'examined very precisely and repeatedly', the statement said. 'The families of the victims were offered amnesty and peace but they refused.'

USA | Why the firing squad may be making a comeback

South Carolina plans to execute Mikal Mahdi on Friday for the murder of a police officer, draping a hood over his head and firing three bullets into his heart. The choice to die by firing squad – rather than lethal injection or the electric chair – was Mahdi’s own, his attorney said last month: “Faced with barbaric and inhumane choices, Mikal Mahdi has chosen the lesser of three evils.” If it proceeds, Mahdi’s execution would be the latest in a recent string of events that have put the spotlight on the firing squad as a handful of US death penalty states explore alternatives to lethal injection, by far the nation’s dominant execution method.

'No Warning': The Death Penalty In Japan

Stakes for wrongful convictions are high in Japan, where the death penalty has broad public support despite criticism over how it is carried out. Tokyo: Capital punishment in Japan is under scrutiny again after the world's longest-serving death row prisoner, Iwao Hakamada, was awarded $1.4 million in compensation this week following his acquittal last year in a retrial. Stakes for wrongful convictions are high in Japan, where the death penalty has broad public support despite international criticism over how it is carried out.

Bangladesh | Botswana Woman Executed for Drug Trafficking

Dhaka, Bangladesh – Lesedi Molapisi, a Botswana national convicted of drug trafficking, was executed in Bangladesh on Friday, 21 March 2025. The 31-year-old was hanged at Dhaka Central Jail after exhausting all legal avenues to appeal her death sentence. Molapisi was arrested in January 2023 upon arrival at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, where customs officials discovered 3.1 kilograms of heroin hidden in her luggage. Following a trial under Bangladesh’s Narcotics Control Act, she was sentenced to death in May 2024. Her execution was initially delayed due to political unrest in the country but was carried out last week.

Execution date set for prisoner transferred to Oklahoma to face death penalty

An inmate who was transferred to Oklahoma last month to face the death penalty now has an execution date. George John Hanson, also known as John Fitzgerald Hanson, is scheduled to die on June 12 for the 1999 murder of 77-year-old Mary Bowles. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday set the execution date. The state’s Pardon and Parole Board has a tentative date of May 7 for Hanson’s clemency hearing, executive director Tom Bates said.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog