U.S. District Judge Austin Huffaker, Jr. will deliberate on the state's continued use of nitrogen hypoxia after hearing testimony on Tuesday from attorneys of a condemned man attempting to halt his scheduled execution.
Alabama's acceptance of nitrogen hypoxia as a form of capital punishment was already controversial before it was ever used. Anti-death penalty advocates called the process cruel and akin to human experimentation. The process involves placing a mask over the convicted person's face while nitrogen gas is pumped in. The lack of oxygen causes the person to lose consciousness and pass away.
The Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) and the attorney general's office both stated they believed the process would be more humane and less prone to the errors that have plagued ADOC in the past, resulting in several canceled executions.
To date, Alabama is the only state in the nation to perform an execution using the method. The first was Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was executed in January. The second was carried out last month in the case of Alan Eugene Miller.
The next nitrogen hypoxia execution is scheduled for next month in the case of Carey Dale Grayson, 49, for murdering a female hitchhiker. Grayson's attorneys presented testimony before a federal judge on Tuesday, asking for a preliminary injunction to halt the execution, which they claim is fraught with problems.
Media witnesses for the two previous nitrogen hypoxia executions described the inmates as shaking, gasping, and writhing on the gurney while the sentence was carried out. Witnesses said the execution took about 22 minutes.
ADOC officials claim the movements were expected and involuntary, while Grayson's attorneys claim they were indicative that the process was "unconstitutionally torturous." They also argue the length of time it took to carry out Smith's execution casts doubt on the expediency of the process.
Court records state Grayson was one of four men convicted of torturing and murdering Vicki Lynn DeBlieux before throwing her off a cliff. Grayson was 19 at the time of the murder. All of Grayson's accomplices were also sentenced to death. However, two had their death sentences commuted after a Supreme Court ruling banning capital punishment for those under 18.
On the night of Feb. 21, 1994, four teenagers, including Grayson, Kenny Loggins, Trace Duncan and Louis Mangione, all of whom had been drinking alcohol and using drugs, saw DeBlieux hitchhiking on I-59 at the Trussville exit in Jefferson County. They offered to take her to Louisiana; instead, they took her to a wooded area on the pretense of picking up another vehicle.
After arriving in the wooded area, they all got out of the vehicle and began to drink. Grayson and the others threw bottles at Deblieux, who started to run from them. They tackled her to the ground and began to kick her repeatedly. When they noticed that she was still alive, one of them stood on her throat, supported by Grayson, until she gurgled blood and said, "Okay, I'll party," and then died.
The group then put her body and luggage in the back of a pickup truck and threw her over the edge of Bald Rock Mountain. This came after court records said they removed her clothes and a ring and "played with her body." After taking one of their group home, the remaining crew returned to the body, where they began to "mutilate the body by stabbing and cutting her 180 times, removing part of a lung, and removing her fingers and thumbs."
"The medical examiner found the following injuries: almost every bone in her skull was fractured, every bone in her face was fractured at least once, lacerations on the face over these fractures, a missing tooth, left eye was collapsed, right eye was hemorrhaged, tongue discolored, 180 stab wounds (postmortem), two large incisions in her chest, her left lung had been removed and all her fingers and both thumbs were cut off," court records state, adding, "The medical examiner opined that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head and that she was alive during the beating."
In an appeal, Grayson admits to throwing a beer bottle at DeBlieux but denies taking part in the mutilations.
To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email craig.monger@1819news.com.
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