Alabama inmate's lawyers seek to block his execution by nitrogen gas, citing problems with controversial method
CBSN
Days after Alabama scheduled its third execution by nitrogen hypoxia, lawyers for the latest prisoner set to die by this method have asked a federal judge to block the execution order.
In a motion filed Tuesday night in Alabama district court, attorneys representing Carey Dale Grayson challenged the constitutionality of the state's execution protocol for nitrogen gas, a novel and highly controversial approach that has only been used once before in January 2024. Grayson was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Alabama in 1996.
They argued that Grayson shouldn't have to be subjected to a procedure that witnesses described as violent, prolonged and generally disturbing to watch after the first execution of Kenneth Smith, who was on death row after being convicted in a murder-for-hire plot.
