Alabama to use nitrogen gas to execute man who killed hitchhiker in 1994

An Alabama inmate convicted of killing a female hitchhiker in 1994 is scheduled to be released Thursday. third person executed with nitrogen gas.

Carey Dale Grayson, 50, was one of four teenagers convicted of killing 37-year-old Vickie Deblieux, who was hitchhiking from Alabama on her way to her mother’s home in Louisiana. He is scheduled to be executed Thursday at 6 p.m. at the William C. Holman Correctional Institution in South Alabama.

This year in Alabama I started using nitrogen gas It is the first use of a new execution method to carry out some death sentences since lethal injection was introduced in the United States in 1982. The method involves placing a respirator gas mask over the person’s face to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death. due to lack of oxygen.

Alabama argues the method is constitutional. But critics argue how the first two men were executed shook for a few minutes – They say the method needs more scrutiny, especially if other states follow Alabama’s lead and adopt the new execution method.

Deblieux’s dismembered body was found at the bottom of a cliff near Odenville, Alabama, on February 26, 1994. Prosecutors said Deblieux hitchhiked from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to his mother’s home in West Monroe, Louisiana, when four teenagers offered him a ride. . Prosecutors said the teens took him to a wooded area and attacked and beat him. They threw him off the cliff and later returned to dismember his body.

A medical doctor testified that Deblieux’s face was so broken that he was identified by an earlier X-ray of his spine. His fingers were also cut off. Investigators said four teenagers were identified as suspects after one of them showed his friend his severed finger and bragged about the murder.

Grayson is only one of four people sentenced to death because the other teenagers were under 18 at the time of the murder. Grayson was 19 years old. Two of the teenagers were initially sentenced to death, but those sentences were overturned when the U.S. Supreme Court banned the execution of criminals who were under 18 at the time of the crime. Another teenager involved in Deblieux’s murder was also sentenced to life imprisonment.

Grayson’s recent calls have focused on calling for greater scrutiny of the new method of administration. They argued that the person experienced “conscious asphyxiation” and that the first two nitrogen applications did not result in rapid loss of consciousness and death as promised by the state. Grayson’s lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the execution to allow time to evaluate the constitutionality of the method.

“Given that this is the first new method of execution used in the United States since lethal injection was first used in 1982, it is appropriate for this Court to reach the issues surrounding this new method,” Grayson’s attorneys wrote.

Lawyers for the Alabama attorney general’s office asked the justices to allow the execution to proceed, saying the lower court found Grayson’s claims speculative.

Alabama’s “nitrogen hypoxia protocol has been used successfully twice, both times resulting in death within minutes,” state attorneys wrote.