On Thursday, January 25, 2024, Alabama executed an inmate by nitrogen hypoxia. This is the first time that this method of execution has been used in the United States. In 1994, I was instrumental in Maryland’s abandoning the gas chamber as its exclusive means of execution and substituting lethal injection. Since 1994, lethal injection has come under increasing attack. Here is a link to a paper that I first presented to the Wranglers Law Club in 2015 and presented in revised form to the Honorable James Macgill American Inn of Court in 2017 that describes how I became involved in challenging the gas chamber and discusses methods of execution.
Maryland abolished capital punishment prospectively in 2013 and then-Governor Martin O’Malley ultimately commuted the death sentences of the Maryland inmates who were under a sentence of death. Although it has been many years since I was involved in death penalty litigation, it still is an interest of mine and the question of methods of execution remains a current issue in the states that still have capital punishment.
