Alabama has completed the construction of a “system” that uses nitrogen to execute the death penalty.
According to the Associated Press, in a court document filed earlier this week, the Alabama Department of Corrections stated that it is waiting to ensure that the nitrogen hypoxia system is ready before writing procedures on how to use it.
“ADOC has completed the preliminary physical construction of the nitrogen hypoxic system,” an attorney from the state attorney general’s office wrote in the August 2 document. “A safety expert has already conducted a site visit to evaluate the system. As a result of the visit, ADOC is considering additional health and safety measures.”
According to Alabama law, nitrogen hypoxia is authorized to execute the death penalty, but it has never been used. ADAC has been contacted to comment on how the system works.
A spokesperson previously stated that the implementation agreement for nitrogen hypoxia is still under development. Refused to disclose details, citing “potential security issues.”
Details about the state’s plan to build the system were disclosed in a lawsuit filed by a death row inmate, which requires a mental counselor to be present at the execution of the death sentence.
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Alabama law states that unless prisoners choose to use electric chairs, they must be executed by injection. But some states are already looking for other ways to execute death inmates, such as firing squads and poison gas, as lethal injections have become increasingly difficult to obtain in recent years.
In 2019, Alabama-together with Oklahoma and Mississippi-Passed legislation authorizing the use of nitrogen to execute prisoners, and supporters believe that it provides a more humane method of executing prisoners.
But critics liken it to a human experiment, and no state has used this method or established an agreement to use it before.
Robert Dunham, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said: “In a very real sense, the execution of the death penalty through hypoxia is experimental. Told before Weekly newspaper.
“No one has done this before, and no one knows whether it will work as its supporters say. And there is no way to test it, because it is totally impossible to kill someone experimentally against their will. moral.”
He added: “If nitrogen hypoxia works as suggested by its supporters, it may be a legal alternative to the death penalty injection. If not, it would be just another method of execution-just like the electric chair and the death penalty injection- It is advertised as fast, effective and painless, but it is not the case.”
Nathaniel Woods He was the last prisoner executed by the state in March last year. There are currently 168 people sentenced to death in the state.
