Entries tagged with “Nitrogen hypoxia”
Methods of Execution
,Dec 09, 2025
Roundup of 2025 Legislation to Modify Execution Protocols
On December 15, 2025, the Death Penalty Information Center will release its annual Year End Report detailing nationwide death penalty trends, including executions, new death sentences, legislation, public opinion, and the legal challenges in the Supreme Court. This article highlights the legislation introduced this year to modify execution protocols. This year, legislators in more than half of states that retain the death penalty proposed changes to their execution protocols. Five states…
Issues
Methods of Execution
,Mar 12, 2024
Three Largest Nitrogen Gas Manufacturers in the U.S. Prohibit Products from Use in Executions
As more states consider nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method, three of the largest manufacturers in the U.S. have barred their products intended for life-saving measures from use in executions. “Airgas has not, and will not, supply nitrogen or other inert gases to induce hypoxia for the purpose of human execution,” the company, which is owned by the French multinational Air Liquid, announced following Oklahoma’s addition of nitrogen hypoxia to their execution protocol in 2015. The European…
Executions
Methods of Execution
,Feb 08, 2024
Past to Present: 100 Years Since the United States’ First Lethal Gas Execution, a Recently Renewed Practice
Today, February 8, marks the 100-year anniversary of the first lethal gas execution in the United States, exactly two weeks after Alabama carried out the first execution using nitrogen gas. On February 8, 1924, Nevada executed Gee Jon, a Chinese immigrant convicted of killing the owner of a laundromat, using cyanide gas. A fellow prisoner, Thomas Russell, was also scheduled to be executed the same day but was resentenced to life by the Board of Pardons and Parole the previous evening. The gas…
Executions
Botched Executions
,Nov 30, 2022
Alabama Drops Lethal Injection for Alan Miller, But May Attempt Execution With Nitrogen Gas
Alabama officials have agreed not to make a second attempt to execute Alan Miller by lethal injection after the state had to call off his September 22, 2022 execution because of the failure to establish an IV line. If the state seeks to execute Miller in the future, it will use nitrogen hypoxia, a method that has never been used for an execution. In the months since Miller’s execution attempt, Alabama also attempted and failed to execute Kenneth Smith. In response to the series of problems…
Executions
Botched Executions
,Sep 26, 2022
Federal Court Orders Alabama to Preserve Evidence of Botched Attempted Execution of Alan Miller
A federal district court has ordered Alabama state officials to preserve evidence related to the state’s failed attempt to execute death-row prisoner Alan Miller on September 22, 2022. The botched execution attempt, Alabama’s third since 2018, came after a divided U.S. Supreme Court issued an after-hours execution-night order setting aside without opinion an injunction that had barred the state from executing Miller “by any method other than nitrogen hypoxia.” Prison officials then…
Issues
Methods of Execution
,Sep 21, 2022
Alabama Federal Court Issues Injunction Halting Execution of Alan Miller
A federal district court issued an order on September 19, 2022 to halt the scheduled September 22, 2022 execution of Alabama death-row prisoner Alan Miller “by any method other than nitrogen hypoxia,” leading to a series of last-minute appeals by Alabama prosecutors and an after-hours execution-night ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court to let the execution go forward. Alabama subsequently called off the execution when it became apparent more than two hours later that execution personnel would be…
Executions
Methods of Execution
,Sep 15, 2022
Alabama Prosecutors Float, Then Retreat From, Plan to Execute Alan Miller Using Untested Nitrogen Suffocation Procedure
Alabama prosecutors have told a federal judge that the state will not execute death-row prisoner Alan Miller by nitrogen hypoxia on September 22, 2022, three days after suggesting there was a “very good chance” it would be ready to attempt the first-ever execution by that method. In a sworn affidavit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama on September 15, 2022, Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm contradicted that assertion, stating “The…
Issues
Methods of Execution
,Jan 28, 2022
Divided Supreme Court Vacates Injunction, Permits Alabama to Execute Intellectually Disabled Prisoner
A divided U.S. Supreme Court voted 5 – 4 on January 27, 2022 to allow Alabama to execute an intellectually disabled death-row prisoner, vacating an injunction issued by a federal district court on January 7 and unanimously upheld by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on January 26. In a decision rendered 1½ hours after the execution of Matthew Reeves was scheduled to begin, the five conservative male justices on the Court voted, without explanation, to let the…
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,Methods of Execution
,Oct 19, 2021
Intellectually Disabled Alabama Death-Row Prisoner Appeals Denial of Stay of Execution, Arguing Designation of Lethal Injection Violated Americans With Disabilities Act
An intellectually disabled Alabama death-row prisoner has appealed a federal district court ruling that clears the way for his execution on October 21, 2021. On October 17, a federal district court judge denied for a second time Willie B. Smith III’s claim that putting him to death by lethal injection violates his rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Lawyers for Smith (pictured) on October 19, 2021 filed a motion in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to stay…
Issues
Methods of Execution
,Aug 11, 2021
Alabama, Mississippi Take Preparatory Steps to Resume Executions
Alabama and Mississippi have undertaken preparatory steps towards resuming executions in the face of continuing legal challenges to their methods of execution. On August 2, 2021, Alabama’s Department of Corrections (ADOC) notified a federal judge that it had “completed the initial physical build on the nitrogen hypoxia system” that would use nitrogen hypoxia to kill prisoners. The method is untested, and the state also indicated in its filing that it had yet to develop an execution protocol…
Executions
Methods of Execution
,Jun 15, 2021
Alabama Readies Death Chamber for Nitrogen Hypoxia Executions
As South Carolina and Arizona prepare to resume executions using gruesome methods of the past, Alabama prosecutors say the state is nearly ready to perform executions using a new, untested method, nitrogen hypoxia. In court filings on June 8, 2021, in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, the Alabama Attorney General’s office said the Alabama Department of Corrections “is nearing completion of the initial physical build for the nitrogen hypoxia system and its safety…