Carey Grayson was executed utilizing controversial methodology after being convicted of the 1994 homicide of a hitchhiker.
A person convicted of murdering a hitchhiker 30 years in the past has turn into the third particular person in the USA to be executed by nitrogen fuel.
Carey Grayson, 50, was executed in Alabama on Thursday after the US Supreme Court docket declined a request for a keep on the grounds that asphyxiation by nitrogen fuel constitutes merciless and weird punishment.
Grayson was sentenced to loss of life over the 1994 torture, bludgeoning and mutilation of Vickie Lynn Deblieux, a hitchhiker who was travelling to her mom’s dwelling in Louisiana.
Deblieux’s mutilated physique was discovered with 180 stab wounds, one in all her lungs eliminated and her fingers and thumbs minimize off.
“Tonight, justice has been served,” Alabama Legal professional Normal Steve Marshall mentioned in a press release.
Alabama has executed three loss of life row inmates by nitrogen fuel this 12 months and is the one US state to have employed the controversial methodology.
Whereas Alabama officers have described nitrogen asphyxiation as probably the most painless and humane methodology of execution, critics have likened the follow to torture.
Throughout his execution, Grayson shook his head back and forth, pulled towards his gurney restraints and gasped for a number of minutes earlier than being pronounced lifeless, in accordance with US media studies.
Alabama Division of Corrections Commissioner John Q Hamm mentioned after the execution that Grayson’s actions appeared to have been “for present”.
A gaggle of United Nations consultants on Thursday referred to as for a ban on execution by nitrogen fuel, saying it violates worldwide legislation.
“We emphasise that the prohibition on torture or to merciless, inhuman or degrading remedy or punishment is absolute, by no means acceptable and never dependant on options,” the consultants mentioned in a press release launched by the Workplace of the UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights.
Out of fifty US states, 21, together with Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia, enable the loss of life penalty.
To this point this 12 months, US authorities have executed 22 folks.
