Alabama told a federal judge that it could soon be ready to use a new, untried execution method called nitrogen hypoxia to carry out a death sentence.
The disclosure came Monday at a court hearing over inmate Alan Miller's request to block his scheduled September 22 execution by lethal injection.
Miller maintains that prison staff lost paperwork he returned in 2018 requesting nitrogen hypoxia, an execution method that the state has authorised but never used.
US District Judge R.Austin Huffaker Jr. asked whether Alabama was ready to carry out executions by nitrogen hypoxia. James Houts, a deputy state attorney general, said the method could be available as soon as next week. He said, however, that a final decision on when to use the new method would be up to Corrections Commissioner John Hamm.
The Alabama Department of Corrections did not respond to an email seeking comment about the status of the proposed new execution method.
Nitrogen hypoxia is a proposed execution method in which death would be caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, thereby depriving him or her of the oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions.
No state has used nitrogen hypoxia to carry out a death sentence. In 2018 Alabama became the third state along with Oklahoma and Mississippi to authorise the untested use of nitrogen gas to execute prisoners. However, lethal injection remains the state's primary execution method.
Nitrogen makes up 78 per cent of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen. The theory behind the execution method is that changing the composition of the air to 100 per cent nitrogen would cause the inmate to pass out and then die from lack of oxygen.
States began proposing nitrogen hypoxia as an alternate execution method because of difficulty obtaining lethal injection drugs and ongoing litigation over the humaneness of lethal injection.
Proponents have theorized that nitrogen hypoxia would be a simpler and more humane execution method. Then-Sen. Trip Pittman, a Republican lawmaker who sponsored the 2018 legislation, theorised it would be similar to how aircraft passengers pass out when a plane depressurizes.
Critics have likened the untested method to human experimentation. It is completely untested", said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Centre.
No state has publicly released a protocol describing how it would work. While proponents have theorized it would be quick and painless, Dunham noted that states once said the same thing about the electric chair.
