24 April 2017 :

Alabama Senate votes to allow execution by nitrogen gas. The Senate voted 25-8 to add nitrogen gas to lethal injection and the electric chair as allowable methods of execution in the state. The bill now moves to the Alabama House. Mississippi and Oklahoma also allow execution by nitrogen gas but have not used it. Sen. Trip Pittman, the Republican bill sponsor, said Alabama needs another execution method as lethal injection faces court challenges. Pittman had originally proposed a firing squad as an execution method. The firing squad bill has been prefiled and was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 7. The Committee offered a substitute for the bill, replacing firing squad with nitrogen hypoxia, and approved the substitute by a vote of 6-3 on April 6. Under the bill, an inmate could choose to be put to death with nitrogen gas instead of lethal injection. It would also allow the state corrections commissioner to choose another constitutional execution method if electrocution, lethal injection and nitrogen gas are all found unconstitutional.