Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has set November 21 as the date for the country’s third death penalty carried out by nitrogen gas – and it will all take place in Alabama.
The execution date for Carey Dale Grayson, 49, was set after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled last week that the execution could go ahead. Grayson was one of four then-teenagers convicted in the 1994 murder of 37-year-old Vickie Deblieux.
In January, Alabama became the first state to Use of nitrogen gas for an execution when it carried out the death penalty for convicted murderer Kenneth Smith, who survived an attempted execution by lethal injection in 2022. In that method of execution, which has been criticized as inhumane and a form of torture, Smith was killed after he appeared to shake and writhe on the stretcher, sometimes tugging at his restraints and then breathing heavily for several minutes until he was unable to breathe anymore.
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Carey Dale Grayson, 49, is scheduled to be executed by nitrogen gas on November 21. (Alabama Department of Corrections via AP)
Smith’s execution was the first time a new method of execution was used in the United States since lethal injection was introduced in 1982, which is now the most commonly used form of capital punishment.
A second nitrogen gas execution for Alan Eugene Miller, who also survived an attempted lethal injection in 2022, is scheduled for September 26. Miller entered into a “confidential agreement” with the state earlier this month to settle his lawsuit over the details of the nitrogen gas protocol.
Grayson is suing to prevent the state from using the same protocol used in Smith’s execution. His lawyers argue that the method causes unconstitutional pain and that Smith showed signs of “conscious asphyxiation.”
Matt Schulz, an assistant federal public defender representing Grayson, said last week that he and his client were disappointed that the execution was approved before federal courts had a chance to consider Grayson’s challenge to the constitutionality of Alabama’s current nitrogen protocol.
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Alabama became the first state to use nitrogen gas in executions earlier this year. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, file)
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Grayson was accused of torturing and killing Deblieux on Feb. 21, 1994, as she was hitchhiking from Tennessee to her mother’s home in Louisiana. Four teenagers, including Grayson, offered her a ride and took her to a wooded area, where they attacked and beat her before throwing her off a cliff, according to prosecutors, who said the teens later mutilated her body.
Three of the teenagers – Grayson, Kenny Loggins and Trace Duncan – were convicted and sentenced to death. The death sentences against Loggins and Duncan, who were under 18 at the time of the crime, were overturned after the US Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that offenders who were younger than 18 at the time of the crime should not be executed. Grayson could not escape the death penalty after the verdict because he was 19 at the time of the crime.
The fourth teenager was sentenced to life imprisonment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
