A bill was recently approved that may make Alabama the third state to allow death row inmates to be executed with the use of nitrogen gas.  This is an execution method that has thus far never been used.  The state voted 25-8 to add nitrogen gas to the list of lethal injection procedures along with the electric chair.  The bill will now be put before representatives in the Alabama House.  

would require inmates to raise claims of ineffective counsel and trial errors.[caption id="attachment_18652" align="alignnone" width="300"]Image Courtesy of RT.com

"No state has carried out an execution using nitrogen hypoxia," Robert Dunham of the Death Penalty Information Center stated.  However, both Mississippi and Oklahoma have made this an allowable method, and now Alabama may add the option as well.  The bill states that an inmate may elect nitrogen hypoxia, or asphyxiation, over lethal injection.  By choosing this alternative, the inmate would be sealed in an airtight chamber.  Nitrogen gas, which is invisible, odorless and tasteless, would be pumped into the chamber, eventually causing the individual to die from a lack of oxygen.  Nitrogen comprises approximately 80 percent of the air humans breathe.  It does not become lethal, however, until it is administered in concentrated doses.  The procedure has been used to put animals "to sleep" for some time.  A few people actually inadvertently meet their demise this way every year, as well.  

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Alabama poised to become the third state to allow executions by NITROGEN GAS however the method has not yet been usedAlabama Senate passes new execution method