Alabama is Set to Execute Carey Grayson in its Third Nitrogen Gas Execution in 2024

Alabama is sched­uled to exe­cute Carey Grayson by nitro­gen hypox­ia on November 21, 2024, for his involve­ment with three oth­er teens in the death of a hitch­hik­er in 1994, when he was 19 years old. Mr. Grayson’ exe­cu­tion would be Alabama’s sixth exe­cu­tion in 2024, and the third by nitro­gen hypox­ia. The state acknowl­edged Mr. Grayson was not the most cul­pa­ble of the group, yet he is the only one of the four teens to face an exe­cu­tion. Mr. Grayson, and three oth­ers, were con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der in the tor­ture, blud­geon­ing, and muti­la­tion of Vicki Deblieux, whose body was found with post-mortem injuries. All four juve­niles were tried sep­a­rate­ly, but by the same pros­e­cu­tor. Two of Mr. Grayson’s code­fen­dants, Kenny Loggins and Trace Duncan, who were both 17 at the time of the killing, were also sen­tenced to death. Louis Mangione, who was just 16 at the time, was sen­tenced to life in prison.

At each tri­al, the pros­e­cu­tor improp­er­ly told the jury that the indi­vid­ual on tri­al was the ring­leader, and thus the indi­vid­ual most deserv­ing of a death sen­tence. At Mr. Grayson’s 1996 tri­al, the pros­e­cu­tor iden­ti­fied him as the ​“leader of the pack” who was respon­si­ble for ​“dri­ving the whole thing,” after using this same lan­guage dur­ing Mr. Loggins’ tri­al. The pros­e­cu­tor told the juries in Mr. Duncan and Mr. Mangione’s tri­als that it was ​“ludi­crous” and an ​“illu­sion” to argue that Mr. Grayson was the ring­leader, as the ​“only” evi­dence against Mr. Grayson was that “[h]e drove the car.” Ahead of Mr. Grayson’s tri­al, his coun­sel request­ed tran­scripts of the oth­er three tri­als, but the tri­al judge denied the request. Because of the judge’s denial, his coun­sel was unable to chal­lenge the prosecutor’s con­flict­ing the­o­ry at Mr. Grayson’s trial.

Mr. Grayson was found guilty, and dur­ing the penal­ty phase of tri­al, his coun­sel failed to present mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence, includ­ing the severe neglect he faced at the hands of his par­ents, how as a young boy he ​“went hun­gry” in the years after his mother’s death when he was young, how he devel­oped men­tal ill­ness because of trau­ma, and was home­less at age 15. 

In 2005, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Roper v. Simmons, that juve­nile offend­ers can­not face the death penal­ty. The Court rea­soned that their imma­tu­ri­ty, dimin­ished sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty, sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty to out­side pres­sures, and poten­tial for reha­bil­i­ta­tion means they ​“can­not with reli­a­bil­i­ty be clas­si­fied among the worst offend­ers.” As a result of this rul­ing, both Mr. Loggins and Mr. Duncan were resen­tenced to life with­out parole, because they were under the age of 18 at the time of the killing. This left Mr. Grayson as the only one of the four teens to face exe­cu­tion, despite the state’s acknowl­edge­ment that Mr. Loggins and Mr. Duncan ​“are every bit as cul­pa­ble — if not more so — in [the victim’s] death.”