23 July 2018 :

Death Row Prisoners End Execution Lawsuit, State Will Drop Lethal Injection in Favor of Nitrogen Gas. Alabama will not execute eight death-row prisoners by means of the problematic lethal-injection protocol they have been challenging, but will instead carry out the executions using lethal gas. In a Joint Motion to Dismiss the prisoners' federal litigation over the state's execution protocol, filed on July 10, 2018, the parties agreed that the lawsuit had been rendered moot by the state's passage of legislation authorizing execution by nitrogen gas and the prisoners' election to die by nitrogen hypoxia. Alabama's lethal-injection process uses the controversial sedative midazolam, which has been implicated in numerous executions across the country that have been described as "botched." After Alabama added nitrogen gas as an option for carrying out the death penalty, the prisoners had a June 30 deadline to select gas as the method of their execution. Nitrogen gas has never been used as a method of execution in the United States, but has been approved as an option by three states—Alabama, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. Of the three states, only Alabama leaves the choice of execution method to the prisoner. Mississippi and Oklahoma allow nitrogen executions only if lethal injection is held unconstitutional or is "otherwise unavailable". According to the federal defender's office representing the Alabama prisoners, their clients in the case, "and anyone else who elected the new method, cannot now be executed by lethal injection." Alabama still must develop a nitrogen-hypoxia protocol before it can carry out any executions using that method, and the prisoners have not waived their right to challenge that protocol. Federal public defender John Palombi, who represents the prisoners, said "While the best way to reduce the risks of botched executions would be to abolish the death penalty, if the death penalty does exist, it must be carried out in a constitutional manner with the respect and dignity that is required of such a solemn event." Alabama's lethal-injection protocol is the most secretive in the nation. Palombi encouraged the state to make the nitrogen hypoxia protocol public "so that the people of the state of Alabama know what is being done in their name."