The Execution of Carey Dale Grayson: Defiance, Normalization and the Third Nitrogen Death

3.0: The Execution of Carey Dale Grayson: Defiance, Normalization and the Third Nitrogen Death

I. From Experiment to Routine

By November 2024, nitrogen hypoxia had ceased to be experimental in any meaningful legal sense. Kenneth Smith's execution in January had established the method's constitutional permissibility. Alan Miller's execution in September had confirmed that the observable suffering documented in Smith's case would not prevent Alabama from continuing to use the protocol. The legal framework was settled. Courts would defer to state assertions about the method's humanity, the burden on condemned inmates to prove substantial risk remained insurmountable and eyewitness accounts of distress would be dismissed as either "involuntary movements"---or, as Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm would claim, "all show."^1^

The execution of Carey Dale Grayson on November 21, 2024, represented a turning point in the nitrogen hypoxia story. Where Smith and Miller had been portrayed as test cases, executions that required careful scrutiny and legal vetting, Grayson's execution was presented as routine. Alabama scheduled it matter-of-factly, rejected legal challenges with dismissive language about "speculation" and proceeded with a frightening confidence that came from having done this twice before. The method was no longer novel---it was becoming normal.^2^

Yet Grayson's execution would prove anything but routine. His final moments---cursing at the prison warden, raising both middle fingers as the gas began to flow, his body pulling against restraints for more than eight minutes---would provide the most defiant spectacle yet of nitrogen hypoxia in practice. This chapter examines Grayson's path to the execution chamber, the legal battles that failed to stop his death, the graphic details of what witnesses observed and the broader implications of nitrogen hypoxia's normalization within Alabama's execution system.^3^

Where Chapters 1 and 2 established nitrogen hypoxia's constitutional framework and documented its early application, this chapter explores how a method becomes entrenched through repetition, how experimental executions evolve into bureaucratic routine and how legal precedent hardens into institutional practice regardless of the human cost.

II. The Crime: Vickie Deblieux and the 1994 Murder

On February 21, 1994, Vickie Lynn Deblieux, a 37-year-old woman, was hitchhiking from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to her mother's home in West Monroe, Louisiana.^4^ She never arrived. Instead, Deblieux encountered four teenagers---Carey Dale Grayson (19), Kenny Loggins (17), Trace Duncan (17), and Louis Christopher Mangione (17)---who offered her a ride.^5^ The teens were drinking and using drugs when they picked her up near Odenville, Alabama.^6^

What followed was one of the most brutal murders in Alabama's modern history. The group drove Deblieux to a wooded area on Bald Rock Mountain, claiming they needed to swap vehicles.^7^ Once there, they began throwing bottles at her. When Deblieux attempted to run, they tackled her to the ground and kicked her repeatedly.^8^ Court records describe how one of the teens stood on her throat while Grayson supported him until Deblieux gurgled blood and said, "Okay, I'll party," before dying.^9^

But the violence did not end with Deblieux's death. The group threw her body off a cliff, then returned later to mutilate her corpse.^10^ They stabbed and cut her body at least 180 times, removed part of a lung and severed all her fingers.^11^ The medical examiner testified that Deblieux's face was so fractured---nearly every bone broken---that she could only be identified through an earlier X-ray of her spine.^12^ Investigators eventually identified the suspects after one of the teens showed a friend one of Deblieux's severed fingers and boasted about the killing.^13^

The brutality of the crime is critical context for understanding the legal and moral debates surrounding Grayson's execution. Governor Kay Ivey would later emphasize the heinousness of his acts, stating that Grayson's crimes were "unimaginable, without an ounce of regard for human life and just unexplainably mean."^14^ This framing---the horrific nature of the underlying crime---became Alabama's primary rhetorical defense against criticisms of the nitrogen hypoxia method. The argument was simple: No matter what suffering Grayson experienced during execution, it could not compare to what Deblieux endured.

III. Conviction, Sentencing, and the Disparate Outcomes

All four teenagers were convicted of capital murder and tried separately in 1995 and 1996.^15^ Yet the prosecutorial strategy employed in these trials would become a source of significant controversy. At each trial, the prosecutor presented conflicting theories about which defendant was the "ringleader."^16^

During Grayson's trial in 1996, the prosecutor identified him as the "leader of the pack" who was responsible for "driving the whole thing."^17^ Yet at the trials of Trace Duncan and Louis Mangione, the same prosecutor argued it was "ludicrous" and an "illusion" to claim Grayson was the ringleader, noting that the only evidence against him was that "[h]e drove the car."^18^ This prosecutorial inconsistency---telling different juries that different defendants were most culpable---raised questions about the reliability of the death sentences imposed.

Grayson's defense counsel requested transcripts of the other three trials to challenge the prosecutor's conflicting theories, but the trial judge denied the request.^19^ Without access to those transcripts, Grayson's attorneys could not demonstrate to the jury that the prosecutor had presented mutually incompatible narratives. The jury convicted Grayson, and during the penalty phase, his counsel failed to present significant mitigating evidence, including the severe neglect he faced as a child, how he "went hungry" in the years after his mother's death, his development of mental illness (bipolar disorder) due to trauma and his homelessness at age 15.^20^

Despite these failures and the prosecutor's inconsistent theories, Grayson was sentenced to death. His three co-defendants were also initially sentenced to death, but their outcomes diverged dramatically. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roper v. Simmons that juvenile offenders, those under 18 at the time of the crime, cannot face the death penalty.^21^ The Court reasoned that juveniles' immaturity, diminished sense of responsibility, susceptibility to outside pressures and potential for rehabilitation mean they "cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders."^22^

As a result of Roper, Kenny Loggins and Trace Duncan, both 17 at the time of the murder, had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment without parole.^23^ Louis Mangione, also 17, received a life sentence.^24^ Grayson alone faced execution---not because he was demonstrably more culpable (the state itself had acknowledged in 2004 appeals that he was not the most culpable^25^), but because he was 19 years old when the crime occurred.

This disparity---four participants, only one executed---highlights the arbitrary nature of capital punishment. Grayson's age at the time of the crime, mere months separated him from the others, determined whether he would live or die. The Supreme Court's recognition that 17-year-olds lack the maturity and judgment of adults applied to his co-defendants but not to him, despite evidence that his own development had been stunted by severe childhood trauma and untreated mental illness.

IV. The Choice of Nitrogen Hypoxia

In July 2018, following Alabama's enactment of the nitrogen hypoxia statute, Grayson was among approximately 180 death row inmates given a small window to elect nitrogen as their preferred execution method.^26^ Grayson made that election, choosing nitrogen over lethal injection or electrocution.^27^ Unlike Miller, whose election was disputed, Grayson's choice was documented and undisputed.

This fact would become central to the legal battles surrounding his execution. Alabama argued that Grayson had voluntarily selected nitrogen hypoxia, that he had chosen this method knowing (or at least having the opportunity to know) what it entailed.^28^ Yet this framing obscured critical context: In 2018, when Grayson made his election, Alabama had no developed protocol, no implementation timeline and no human data about how nitrogen executions would actually work.^29^ The choice was made in an informational vacuum.

Moreover, the "choice" framework itself is problematic. As critics noted, requiring inmates to select among potentially torturous methods---lethal injection (which had a documented history of botched executions in Alabama), electrocution (widely considered brutal) or an entirely untested nitrogen protocol---the bureaucratization of cruelty under the guise of procedural fairness.^30^ Grayson's "choice" of nitrogen was less an expression of informed consent than a gamble that an unknown method might be less painful than the known horrors of Alabama's other execution options.

By November 2024, when Grayson's execution was scheduled, the nitrogen hypoxia landscape had changed dramatically. Kenneth Smith and Alan Miller had both been executed using the method, and eyewitness accounts from both executions described prolonged physical distress---shaking, gasping, convulsions---that contradicted the state's promises of rapid unconsciousness. Grayson's attorneys would argue that this new information fundamentally altered the calculation. What Grayson had elected in 2018 as a potentially "humane" alternative had been revealed, through Smith's and Miller's deaths, to cause unimaginable conscious suffering.

V. The Post-Miller Legal Challenge

Grayson's attorneys filed a federal lawsuit in June 2024, challenging the constitutionality of nitrogen hypoxia based on the observable evidence from Smith's and Miller's executions.^31^ The complaint focused on four specific deficiencies in Alabama's protocol:

1. Lack of pre-execution medical examination: The protocol did not require any medical assessment to determine whether Grayson had conditions that might prolong consciousness or increase suffering during nitrogen-induced hypoxia.^32^

2. Absence of sedation: Unlike most execution protocols, including lethal injection, which often begins with a sedative, nitrogen hypoxia involved no pre-treatment to reduce anxiety, panic or conscious suffering.^33^

3. Improper mask fit: The full-face respirator mask had to create a perfect seal to prevent oxygen infiltration, yet the protocol provided no mechanism to ensure proper fit or to adjust for individual anatomical variations.^34^

4. Inadequate monitoring: The protocol lacked sufficient monitoring of consciousness, relying primarily on visual observation rather than EEG or other objective measures of brain activity.^35^

To support these claims, Grayson's attorneys presented expert testimony from Dr. Brian McAlary, an anesthesiologist who testified that Grayson would likely experience "agony" from oxygen deprivation while still conscious.^36^ Dr. McAlary also warned that if the nitrogen gas were turned off before death occurred---for instance, if there were a protocol failure or if officials stopped the execution mid-process---Grayson could suffer permanent brain damage, existing in a vegetative state neither fully alive nor dead.^37^

The legal framework remained unchanged from Smith's and Miller's cases. Glossip v. Gross required Grayson to demonstrate a "substantial risk of severe pain" and to propose a feasible alternative method.^38^ Grayson's attorneys offered two alternatives: (1) a modified nitrogen protocol involving pre-execution sedation with ketamine and use of a hyperbaric chamber filled with nitrogen, allowing gradual oxygen displacement while unconscious and (2) lethal injection using ketamine and fentanyl rather than the drugs Alabama typically used.^39^

Alabama's response emphasized that Grayson's evidence was "speculative" and that the prior nitrogen executions had been "successful."^40^ Deputy Solicitor General Robert Overing argued that nitrogen hypoxia was not akin to suffocation "like drowning or smothering with a plastic bag or paralyzing the lungs," characterizing the comparison as "apples and oranges" and trying to use the term "suffocation" "to evoke a sense of fear and pain that doesn't exist with this method."^41^

VI. Judge Huffaker's Ruling: Precedent Hardens Into Doctrine

On November 6, 2024, U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker Jr.---the same judge who had presided over Smith's and Miller's cases---denied Grayson's motion for a preliminary injunction.^42^ The ruling followed an evidentiary hearing where Alabama corrections officials testified about their observations during the first two nitrogen executions, while Grayson's attorneys presented media accounts detailing the visible suffering of both men.^43^

Huffaker acknowledged that the evidence about what actually happened during Smith's and Miller's executions was "conflicting and inconsistent."^44^ Yet he concluded that "what that evidence did show was that the nitrogen hypoxia protocol was successful and resulted in death in less than 10 minutes and loss of consciousness in even less time."^45^ This framing, defining "success" purely as achieving death within a specified timeframe, ignored the constitutional question of whether the observable suffering during that timeframe constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

Huffaker's opinion employed language nearly identical to his earlier rulings: "His evidence and allegations amount to speculation, a speculative parade of highly unlikely events, and scientific controversy at best. They fall well short of showing that the nitrogen hypoxia protocol creates an unacceptable risk of pain, let alone superadded pain."^46^ The judge conceded that Dr. McAlary's testimony suggested the protocol would inflict "psychological pain," but dismissed this concern by noting that such pain "would exist regardless of the method of execution."^47^

This reasoning is significant. By acknowledging that nitrogen hypoxia causes psychological suffering---conscious awareness of suffocation, panic, air hunger---but dismissing that suffering as inherent to all executions, Huffaker effectively removed psychological distress from Eighth Amendment consideration. The opinion suggested that only physical pain beyond what is necessary to cause death constitutes unconstitutional cruelty, a standard that would permit almost any execution method as long as it eventually results in death without inflicting additional physical injury.

The Eleventh Circuit declined to intervene, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied Grayson's stay request without comment on November 21, 2024, hours before his scheduled execution.^48^ Grayson's attorneys had argued that his case raised "issues of national importance" about "whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits suffocating a conscious prisoner," but the Court's silence indicated it saw no need to revisit the nitrogen hypoxia issue so soon after allowing Smith's and Miller's executions to proceed.^49^

VII. The Execution: November 21, 2024

A. The Hours Before

Carey Grayson's final day began like any other on Alabama's death row, but with the knowledge that it would be his last. He refused his breakfast and lunch trays but drank coffee and Mountain Dew throughout the day.^50^ For his final meal, Grayson ordered soft tacos, beef burritos, a tostada, chips and guacamole and a Mountain Dew Blast from local restaurants, a meal that was both ordinary and final.^51^

Governor Kay Ivey had already made clear that she would not grant clemency. In the days leading up to the execution, she told reporters, "Did Carey Grayson give any consideration to the fact that he robbed Vickie Deblieux and her family of now 30 Thanksgivings?"^52^ This rhetorical question framed the execution as a matter of proportional justice. Deblieux had been denied three decades of holidays, so Grayson's execution a week before Thanksgiving was not cruel timing but appropriate symmetry.

B. The Final Words and Defiant Gesture

At approximately 6:06 p.m., the curtains to the execution chamber opened.^53^ Carey Grayson lay strapped to the gurney, a blue rimmed gas mask fitted tightly over his face. Witnesses reported that he appeared alert and aware as Holman Correctional Facility Warden Terry Raybon approached with a microphone to ask for his final statement.^54^

Grayson's response was immediate and profane: "Uh yeah, for you, you need to f*** off."^55^

The warden quickly turned off the microphone. Grayson continued speaking. Witnesses could see his mouth moving beneath the mask, but his words were no longer audible to those in the viewing room.^56^ He appeared to direct his comments toward the witness room where state officials sat, his body language suggesting anger, defiance or both.^57^ Then, in a gesture that would become the defining image of his execution, Grayson raised both middle fingers into the air as the nitrogen gas began to flow.^58^

Commissioner John Q. Hamm would later explain the decision to cut off Grayson's microphone: "He has cursed out most of our employees tonight, so we were not going to give him the opportunity to spew that profanity."^59^ This statement is revealing. It suggests that Grayson's final hours involved repeated confrontations with prison staff, a pattern of defiance that continued until his last breath. It also raises questions about censorship: The state controls not only when and how condemned inmates die, but also what they are permitted to say in their final moments. Grayson's profanity, his middle fingers and his visible anger all became part of the execution's public record despite the state's attempts to silence him.

C. The Physical Responses: Eight Minutes of Observable Distress

Once the gas began flowing---though witnesses could not determine the exact moment due to the setup of the execution chamber---Grayson's body began to react.^60^ Multiple media witnesses provided detailed accounts of what they observed over the next several minutes.

Grayson "rocked his head, shook and pulled against the gurney restraints."^61^ Unlike the passive unconsciousness the state had promised, Grayson's movements suggested active struggle. He "clenched his fist and appeared to struggle to try to gesture again," possibly attempting to raise his middle fingers once more, though the restraints and his declining motor control made the gesture incomplete.^62^

At 6:14 p.m., witnesses observed a particularly disturbing detail: "His sheet-wrapped legs lifted off the gurney into the air."^63^ This involuntary (or perhaps voluntary) leg movement indicated significant muscular activity, contradicting the notion that Grayson had quickly lost consciousness. The specific timing---eight minutes after the curtains opened---suggests a period of extended physical reaction to the nitrogen exposure.

Grayson then "took a periodic series of more than a dozen gasping breaths for several minutes."^64^ Witnesses counted at least twelve distinct gasps: deep, labored breathing that resembled someone desperately trying to obtain air.^65^ The gasping was not continuous but came in waves, suggesting periods where Grayson's respiratory system fought against the nitrogen induced hypoxia.

He appeared to stop breathing at 6:21 p.m., approximately fifteen minutes after the curtains opened.^66^ The curtains closed at 6:27 p.m., and Grayson was pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m.^67^ Commissioner Hamm later disclosed that nitrogen flowed through Grayson's mask for approximately fifteen minutes, and an electrocardiogram showed his heart stopped beating about ten minutes after the gas began flowing.^68^

D. Commissioner Hamm's "All Show" Defense

In the press conference following the execution, Commissioner Hamm made a remarkable claim: He thought some of Grayson's initial movements were "all show."^69^ This statement suggested that Grayson was conscious and deliberately exaggerating his physical reactions to make the execution appear more brutal than it actually was, that his shaking, pulling against restraints and raised middle fingers were performative rather than reflexive responses to oxygen deprivation.

Hamm continued, "You are going to have involuntary body movement in the nitrogen hypoxia executions."^70^ This formulation allowed the state to have it both ways. Some of Grayson's movements were conscious choices ("all show"), while others were involuntary physiological responses that did not indicate suffering. The state thus maintained that nothing observers saw contradicted its claims about the method's humanity. Conscious movements were dismissed as performance, unconscious movements as expected reflex.

This "all show" defense is deeply problematic. It requires accepting that a man facing imminent death, a man who had just cursed out the warden and raised his middle fingers, was simultaneously engaged in theatrical performance to discredit the execution method. It asks us to believe that Grayson, in the final minutes of his life, as nitrogen displaced oxygen in his lungs, was thinking not about his impending death but about how to make Alabama's execution protocol look bad.

The alternative interpretation is that Grayson's movements were genuine responses to what he was experiencing: conscious awareness of suffocation, involuntary muscular reactions to hypoxia and the body's desperate attempts to obtain oxygen. If this interpretation is correct, then Grayson's execution involved approximately eight to fifteen minutes of conscious or semi-conscious distress, far longer than the "seconds" of unconsciousness the state had promised.

E. Victim's Daughter: "Murdering Inmates Under the Guise of Justice"

Perhaps the most unexpected voice following Grayson's execution came from Jodi Haley, Vickie Deblieux's daughter. Haley was twelve years old when her mother was murdered. She had lived three decades carrying that loss.^71^ Witnesses expected her to express satisfaction or closure at Grayson's death.

Instead, Haley offered a more complicated reflection. She described her mother as "unique," "spontaneous," "wild," "funny" and "gorgeous."^72^ She acknowledged that her mother's life and future had been stolen. But then Haley pivoted to Grayson himself: "He was abused in every possible way in his youth ... society failed this man as a child, and my family suffered because of it."^73^

Haley's statement continued, "Murdering inmates under the guise of justice needs to stop. No one should have the right to take a person's possibilities, days and life."^74^

This was not what Alabama officials wanted to hear. Governor Ivey had framed Grayson's execution as justice for Deblieux, as closure for her family, as moral clarity about heinous crimes deserving ultimate punishment. Yet Deblieux's own daughter, the person with perhaps the greatest claim to demand Grayson's death, rejected that framing. She recognized that Grayson's execution did not restore her mother, did not undo thirty years of grief and did not represent justice so much as the perpetuation of violence.

Haley's statement reveals a truth that the state's rhetoric obscures: Victims' families are not monolithic in their views about capital punishment and even those who have suffered tremendous loss may question whether state killing in their name serves any purpose beyond revenge.

VIII. Legal and Ethical Analysis

A. The Normalization Curve

Grayson's execution marks a critical point on what might be called the "normalization curve" of nitrogen hypoxia. Smith's execution was treated as a historic first and was thus subject to heightened scrutiny, international condemnation and widespread media coverage. Miller's execution generated less attention but still prompted significant legal challenges and public debate. By the time of Grayson's execution, nitrogen hypoxia was becoming routine.

This normalization has legal consequences. Each execution creates precedent that makes the next execution easier to carry out. Judge Huffaker could point to two prior nitrogen deaths as evidence that the method "works." The Eleventh Circuit and Supreme Court could treat Grayson's challenge as repetitive, raising no new issues beyond those already rejected in Smith's and Miller's cases. The state could schedule Grayson's execution with confidence that courts would not intervene.

But normalization also occurs in public perception. Media coverage of Grayson's execution was less extensive than coverage of Smith's. The fact that Grayson cursed at the warden and raised his middle fingers became the dominant narrative: his defiance rather than his suffering, his obscene gesture rather than his eight minutes of gasping for air. The execution was framed as transgressive theater rather than potential constitutional violation.

This shift in framing benefits the state immensely. When executions are novel, they attract scrutiny. When they become routine, they fade into the background of criminal justice administration. Nitrogen hypoxia is following the historical pattern of all execution methods: initial controversy, repeated use despite observable problems and eventual acceptance as just another way the state kills.

B. The Evidentiary Paradox Deepens

Grayson's case crystallizes the evidentiary paradox inherent in method of execution challenges. He had what Smith and Miller lacked, concrete human data from two prior nitrogen executions. His attorneys could point to specific, observable evidence of suffering: Smith's writhing and convulsions, Miller's shaking and gasping and the extended durations before apparent loss of consciousness. Yet this evidence was deemed insufficient.

Judge Huffaker's ruling is explicit. The prior executions were "successful" because they resulted in death within ten minutes.^75^ This framing reduces constitutional analysis to a simple binary. Did the method kill the person? If yes, it is constitutionally permissible. The quality of that death---whether it involved suffering, how much suffering and whether the suffering was necessary---becomes secondary to the fact of death itself.

This standard effectively immunizes any execution method from constitutional challenge as long as it eventually causes death. A method could involve prolonged conscious suffering, visible distress and extended duration, yet still be deemed "successful" if it ultimately achieves its purpose. The Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment is reduced to a prohibition on methods that fail to kill or that cause additional physical injury beyond what is necessary for death.

Moreover, Grayson's challenge highlighted the impossibility of meeting the "feasible alternative" requirement. His attorneys proposed modified protocols---use of a sedative or alternative lethal drugs---but these were deemed speculative or impractical. Lethal injection remained problematic due to Alabama's history of botched executions. Electrocution was available but widely considered brutal. The three-method system created an illusion of choice while ensuring that no truly humane alternative existed.

C. The "All Show" Problem

Commissioner Hamm's claim that Grayson's initial movements were "all show" introduces a dangerous precedent. If states can dismiss observable suffering as performance rather than genuine distress, then eyewitness accounts lose all evidentiary value. Any movement, any sign of consciousness or any indication of pain can be recharacterized as the condemned person's attempt to discredit the execution method rather than evidence of what they are actually experiencing.

This logic would permit states to execute people using any method, no matter how obviously cruel, as long as officials could claim afterward that observable suffering was exaggerated or feigned. It places condemned inmates in an impossible position. If they remain still and silent, the state claims the method is painless. If they move or show distress, the state claims they are performing.

The "all show" defense also requires believing something deeply implausible: that a person in the final minutes of life, experiencing nitrogen-induced hypoxia, retains the cognitive capacity and motivation to engage in political theater. Grayson's middle fingers and profanity might be interpreted as genuine expressions of anger and defiance, but claiming that his subsequent physical reactions---head rocking, pulling against restraints, gasping breaths---were deliberately exaggerated requires accepting that he remained conscious, aware and theatrically oriented throughout much of the execution process. If that's true, it undermines the state's claim that nitrogen causes rapid unconsciousness. If it's false, then Hamm's dismissal of Grayson's suffering as "show" is simply a rhetorical strategy to avoid confronting what actually occurred.

D. International Perspective and UN Condemnation

Grayson's execution prompted renewed condemnation from the United Nations Human Rights Office. UN experts stated, "We reiterate our call for an urgent ban on execution by nitrogen asphyxiation, which is clearly prohibited under international law," citing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture.^76^ The statement emphasized that "the prohibition on torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is absolute, never acceptable and not dependent on alternatives."^77^

This international perspective challenges the entire Glossip/Bucklew framework. U.S. courts require condemned inmates to prove that a method causes substantial risk of severe pain and to identify feasible alternatives. But international human rights law suggests that if a method constitutes torture or cruel treatment, the absence of alternatives is irrelevant. The method must be prohibited, regardless.

The UN experts also noted concern "over the lack of effective legal assistance and accommodations to guarantee fair trial and due process in criminal cases against persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities," specifically referencing Grayson's bipolar disorder.^78^ This highlights another dimension of the case: whether someone with significant mental illness receives fair treatment in a capital system that demands sophisticated legal strategy and the ability to effectively assist in one's own defense.

IX. Broader Implications

A. The Third Execution and the Path Forward

Grayson's execution solidified nitrogen hypoxia's place in Alabama's execution arsenal. With three completed executions, each having followed similar patterns of extended physical reactions, gasping and observable distress, the method became established through repetition rather than validation. The state no longer needed to prove nitrogen hypoxia was humane; it only needed to point to prior uses and claim they were "successful."

Dozens of inmates on Alabama's death row had elected nitrogen hypoxia as their execution method.^79^ Each execution further normalized the method, making constitutional challenges increasingly difficult for all who had chosen the method and interstate adoption more likely.

Oklahoma, Mississippi and Louisiana had all authorized nitrogen hypoxia, and other states facing lethal injection challenges appeared ready to follow.^80^ Grayson's execution demonstrated that once a method was approved by one state, the legal barriers to its spread diminished substantially. Other states could cite Alabama's experience as proof of feasibility, and courts could point to the growing body of nitrogen executions as evidence that the method had been accepted within wider capital punishment practice.

B. Defiance as Evidence

Grayson's profanity and middle fingers---his explicit "f*** off" to the warden, his obscene gesture as the gas began flowing---might have been dismissed as crude disrespect or final transgression. But his defiance should also be read as testimony, a man who knew what was about to happen to him, who knew (through his attorneys) what had happened to Smith and Miller, refusing to participate in the state's narrative of humane death. His cursing was not random vulgarity. It was rejection of the legitimacy of what Alabama was doing to him.

The state's decision to cut off his microphone was equally revealing. Alabama controlled not just when condemned inmates died but what they were allowed to say about their deaths. Grayson's final words---whatever he continued to say after the microphone was turned off---remained unknown except to those who could read his lips or were close enough to hear. The state censored his dying statement, preserving official decorum while silencing the person most directly affected by the execution.

C. The Victim's Daughter and Competing Narratives of Justice

Jodi Haley's statement "murdering inmates under the guise of justice needs to stop" challenged the central justification for capital punishment: that it served victims and their families.^81^ Haley did not experience closure or satisfaction from Grayson's death. Instead, she recognized cycles of violence, systemic failures and the inadequacy of killing as a response to killing.

Her perspective complicated the state's narrative. Governor Ivey framed Grayson's execution as justice for Deblieux, yet Deblieux's daughter explicitly rejected that framing. This suggested that capital punishment served state interests---demonstrating power, satisfying political constituencies, maintaining traditional practices---more than it served victims or achieved meaningful justice or closure for the family.

X. Conclusion: The Third Death and the Machinery of Normalization

Carey Dale Grayson died on November 21, 2024, after approximately fifteen minutes of nitrogen gas flow, with visible physical reactions lasting at least eight minutes and gasping breaths continuing for several minutes before apparent unconsciousness.^82^ He cursed at the warden, raised both middle fingers and fought against his restraints as nitrogen displaced the oxygen in his lungs. Commissioner Hamm called some of his movements "all show." Eyewitnesses called it disturbing and prolonged. The victim's daughter called the execution system "murdering inmates under the guise of justice."

Grayson's execution represented a turning point: Nitrogen hypoxia was no longer experimental or novel. It had become routine, normalized through repetition and insulated from meaningful constitutional review by precedent and procedural barriers. The legal framework established through Smith's and Miller's cases had hardened into doctrine. The observable suffering documented in all three executions had been explained away as "involuntary movements," "expected reactions" or "all show."

Yet something essential remained unresolved, the gap between what courts permitted and what actually occurred when the state uses nitrogen to kill. The gap---between legal permission and human experience, between official narratives and eyewitness accounts, between claims of humanity and observable suffering---defines the nitrogen hypoxia story. It reveals the limits of law's ability to regulate violence, the inadequacy of judicial deference in the face of experimental methods and the moral cost of maintaining a death penalty system that requires constant innovation to overcome the practical and ethical obstacles to state killing.

Grayson's middle fingers, frozen in defiance as the gas began to flow, captured something the official statements could not acknowledge: the condemned person's refusal to participate in the fiction of humane execution. His profanity was not mere vulgarity but testimony, a final rejection of the legitimacy of nitrogen hypoxia and the legal machinery that authorized it. The state silenced him by turning off the microphone, but the gesture remained visible, a wordless condemnation that no amount of official rhetoric could erase.

Where Chapter 1 documented nitrogen hypoxia's first use and Chapter 2 examined its continuation despite observable problems, this chapter revealed the method's normalization: how repetition transformed experimental violence into bureaucratic routine, how legal precedent hardened around observable suffering and how the state's interest in maintaining executions overrode mounting evidence that the process inflicted conscious distress. Grayson's execution was the third nitrogen death. It would not be the last. And with each subsequent execution, the questions he died asking---about cruelty, about dignity, about what we were willing to do in the name of justice---became harder to ignore and easier to rationalize away.

Alabama had more nitrogen executions scheduled. Other states were watching. The machinery of death, having found a new method, continued operating until legal or political forces compelled it to stop. Carey Dale Grayson's defiance in his final moments suggested he understood this. His raised middle fingers were not just directed at the warden or the state officials in the witness room. They were directed at all of us, everyone who participates, however passively, in a system that continues to experiment with new ways to kill despite mounting evidence of the human cost.

Endnotes

1. John Q. Hamm, Press Conference, Jan. 25, 2024. (Hamm called Kenneth Smith's distress "all show" and "involuntary movements"); see also John Q. Hamm, Press Conference, Sept. 26, 2024 (Hamm called Alan Miller's distress "involuntary movements").

2. In its response to each legal challenge to nitrogen, the State of Alabama uses the word "speculation" so much that it would be impossible to cite each instance.

3. John Q. Hamm, Press Conference, Nov. 21, 2024.

4. Grayson v. State, 824 So. 2d 804, 807 (Ala. Crim. App. 1999), cert. denied, Ex parte Grayson, 824 So. 2d 844 (Ala. 2002); The factual recitation of the crime (Deblieux murder, the four teenagers, Bald Rock Mountain, the throat-standing, mutilation, 180 stab wounds, severed fingers and medical examiner testimony about facial fractures) appears at pages 807--08 of that opinion.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid, 807--08.

8. Ibid, 808.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid; Medical Examiner testimony, trial transcript, 808.

12. Grayson v. State, 824 So. 2d 804, 808 (Ala. Crim. App. 1999) (medical examiner testified victim's face was so fractured she was identified by X-ray of her spine).

13. Ibid (suspects identified after one showed severed finger to friend and boasted about killing).

14. Kay Ivey, Statement on Execution of Carey Dale Grayson, Alabama Governor's Office, Nov. 21, 2024.

15. Grayson v. State, 824 So. 2d 804 (Ala. Crim. App. 1999) (Grayson convicted 1996); see also Grayson v. Allen, 491 F.3d 1318, 1322 (11th Cir. 2007) (noting all four defendants tried separately.

16. Grayson v. Allen, 491 F.3d 1318, 1326 (11th Cir. 2007), affirming 499 F. Supp. 2d 1228 (M.D. Ala. 2007).

17. Ibid, 1326 (prosecutor called Grayson "leader of the pack" responsible for "driving the whole thing").

18. Ibid (at co-defendants' trials, same prosecutor argued it was "ludicrous" and an "illusion" to claim Grayson was ringleader; only evidence was that "[h]e drove the car").

19. Grayson v. State, 824 So. 2d 804, 823--25 (Ala. Crim. App. 1999) (affirming trial court's denial of request for co-defendants' trial transcripts).

20. Grayson v. Commissioner, Ala. Department. of Corr., Motion for Stay of Execution, Exhibit A (mitigation evidence), Oct. 2024.

21. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005). The landmark Supreme Court decision holding that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the execution of offenders who were under 18 at the time of their crimes.

22. Ibid, 569--70.

23. Death Penalty Information Center, "Alabama Executions," database (last updated Nov. 2024), https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/state-and-federal-info/state-by-state/alabama.

24. Ibid.

25. Brief of the States of Alabama, Delaware, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Virginia as Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioner, Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005) (No. 03-633) (Alabama arguing it would be "nonsensical" to allow Grayson's execution but not his co-defendants, whom the state described as "plainly ... every bit as culpable---if not more so---in Vickie's death and mutilation").

26. Alabama Department of Corrections, Nitrogen Hypoxia Election Records (2018).

27. Ibid.

28. Alabama Attorney General's Office, Response to Motion for Preliminary Injunction, Grayson v. Hamm, No. 2:24-cv-00449 (M.D. Ala. Nov. 2024).

29. Grayson v. Hamm, Complaint 15--20, No. 2:24-cv-00449 (M.D. Ala. June 2024).

30. Stephen Cooper, "Mengele-Like Logic Underpins Alabama's Plan to Gas a Man to Death," Montgomery Advertiser, Jan. 25, 2024, https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/opinion/contributors/2024/01/25/mengele-like-logic-underpins-alabamas-plan-to-gas-a-man-to-death/72356085007.

31. Grayson v. Hamm, Complaint, No. 2:24-cv-00449 (M.D. Ala. June 2024).

32. Ibid, 25--30 (lack of pre-execution medical examination).

33. Ibid, 31--35 (absence of sedation).

34. Ibid, 36--40 (improper mask fit).

35. Ibid, 41--45 (inadequate monitoring of consciousness).

36. Dr. Brian McAlary, Expert Affidavit 8, Grayson v. Hamm, Docket No. 24-cv-00449 (M.D. Ala. Oct. 2024).

37. Ibid, 12.

38. Glossip v. Gross, 576 U.S. 863, 877 (2015); Bucklew v. Precythe, 139 S. Ct. 1112, 1126 (2019).

39. Grayson v. Hamm, Motion for Preliminary Injunction, Proposed Alternative Methods, 15--18 (M.D. Ala. Oct. 2024) (proposing modified nitrogen protocol with sedation and hyperbaric chamber, or lethal injection using ketamine and fentanyl).

40. Alabama Attorney General's Office, Response Brief at 8, Grayson v. Hamm (M.D. Ala. Nov. 2024).

41. Kim Chandler, "Federal Appeals Court Won't Block Upcoming Nitrogen Gas Execution in Alabama," Associated Press, Nov. 18, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/alabama-nitrogen-execution-7908c96ad7a73b778164b76e92ad0801.

42. Grayson v. Hamm, No. 2:24-cv-00449-RAH, Memorandum Opinion and Order (M.D. Ala. Nov. 6, 2024).

43. Ibid, 3--5 (summary of evidentiary hearing).

44. Ibid, 12 (acknowledging evidence about Smith's and Miller's executions was "conflicting and inconsistent").

45. Ibid, 13 (concluding protocol was "successful and resulted in death in less than 10 minutes and loss of consciousness in even less time").

46. Ibid, 15 ("His evidence and allegations amount to speculation, a speculative parade of highly unlikely events, and scientific controversy at best. They fall well short of showing that the nitrogen hypoxia protocol creates an unacceptable risk of pain, let alone superadded pain.").

47. Ibid, 14 (acknowledging Dr. McAlary's testimony that protocol would inflict "psychological pain" but dismissing it as pain "that would exist regardless of the method of execution").

48. Grayson v. Hamm, U.S. ___ (2024) (denying stay); Supreme Court Order, Nov. 21, 2024, https://www.supremecourt.gov.

49. Petition for Writ of Certiorari and Stay of Execution at 2, Grayson v. Hamm, No. 24-___ (U.S. Nov. 20, 2024).

50. Alabama Department of Corrections, Execution Log for Carey Dale Grayson, Nov. 21, 2024.

51. Ibid.

52. Erik Ortiz and Abigail Brooks, "Carey Dale Grayson Put to Death in Alabama's Third Nitrogen Gas Execution," NBC News, Nov. 21, 2024, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alabama-execute-carey-dale-grayson-nitrogen-gas-rcna180893.

53. Pool Witness Report, Alabama Department of Corrections, Nov. 21, 2024.

54. Ibid.

55. Kim Chandler, "Alabama Carries Out Nation's Third Nitrogen Gas Execution on a Man for Hitchhiker's Killing," Associated Press, Nov. 22, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/death-penalty-nitrogen-execution-alabama-09450359e223a9d38a5fb24e87fcfb45.

56. Ibid.

57. Pool Witness Report, supra note 50.

58. Chandler, supra note 55.

59. John Q. Hamm, Press Conference, Holman Correctional Facility, Nov. 21, 2024 (quoted in AP News).

60. Pool Witness Report, supra note 50.

61. Chandler, supra note 55.

62. Ibid.

63. Ibid.

64. Pool Witness Report, supra note 50.

65. Ibid.

66. Chandler, supra note 55.

67. Alabama Department of Corrections, Official Time of Death Certification, Nov. 21, 2024.

68. John Q. Hamm, Press Conference, Nov. 21, 2024.

69. Ibid.

70. Ibid.

71. Jodi Haley, Statement to Media, Nov. 21, 2024 (quoted in multiple news sources).

72. Ibid.

73. Ibid.

74. Ibid.

75. Grayson v. Hamm, Memorandum Opinion at 13 (M.D. Ala. Nov. 6, 2024).

76. United Nations Human Rights Office, "United States: Experts call for urgent ban on executions by nitrogen gas in Alabama," Nov. 20, 2024, https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/11/united-states-experts-call-urgent-ban-executions-nitrogen-gas-alabama.

77. Ibid.

78. Ibid.

79. Alabama Department of Corrections, Nitrogen Hypoxia Election Statistics (2024).

80. Oklahoma Stat. Tit. 22 § 1014; Mississippi Code § 99‑19‑51; Louisiana Rev. Stat. § 15:569.1 (2024).

81. Jodi Haley, Statement, Nov. 21, 2024.

82. John Q. Hamm, Press Conference, Nov. 21, 2024; Pool Witness Report, Nov. 21, 2024.

3.1: Judge R. Austin Huffaker Jr. and the Judicial Construction of Nitrogen Hypoxia in Alabama

U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker Jr. has played a uniquely formative role in the legal rise of nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method in Alabama. No other federal judge has exerted such decisive influence over whether the method would debut, persist and become normalized within modern execution machinery. His decisions, especially the one permitting the nitrogen hypoxia execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith in January 2024, did more than resolve discrete cases. They constructed the constitutional framework under which Alabama's new method would operate. Through judicial reasoning that consistently emphasized the speculative nature of inmates' warnings, the reliability of the state's assurances and the insufficiency of psychological suffering as a constitutional harm, Huffaker helped shape a legal environment that not only allowed nitrogen hypoxia to proceed but made it extraordinarily difficult to halt.

Among all of his rulings, the most pivotal remains his decision in Smith's case, which first tested whether the federal courts would allow Alabama to carry out the world's first execution by nitrogen gas. Smith's attorneys raised multiple concerns. They argued that the mask was untested, that nitrogen systems had never been used on a human being, that oxygen deprivation would cause extreme air hunger and terror and that any leak or equipment malfunction could produce prolonged and torturous consciousness. Huffaker rejected these arguments forcefully, describing the inmates' evidence as 'speculation' and 'scientific controversy.'"¹ In his view, Smith had failed to demonstrate that the method presented a substantial risk of severe pain. The burden placed on the prisoner under Baze v. Rees and Glossip v. Gross required more than hypothetical dangers, he noted, and Alabama's assurances that unconsciousness would occur within seconds, followed by death in minutes, were credible and sufficient.²

This ruling was the judicial opening through which the first nitrogen hypoxia execution passed. Without it, Alabama's protocol would have remained theoretical. With it, the state moved forward, and the consequences were visible for all to see. When Smith was executed in January 2024, media witnesses reported violent convulsions, shaking, heaving and extended gasping---behaviors wholly inconsistent with the rapid, serene death the state had promised.³ Yet when later inmates pointed to these eyewitness accounts as evidence that the method inflicted unconstitutional suffering, Huffaker discounted them sharply. In subsequent rulings, including those in the cases of Alan Miller and Carey Dale Grayson, he held that accounts of Smith's execution were "conflicting and inconsistent."⁴ Because the evidence about what had happened was unclear, he concluded, it did not prove that nitrogen hypoxia inflicted severe pain. Instead, he treated the execution as successful because the state achieved the fundamental objective: "death within ten minutes," with likely loss of consciousness far earlier.⁵ This judicial posture---treating ambiguity as cutting against the prisoners rather than the state---became the defining feature of Huffaker's nitrogen hypoxia jurisprudence.

The case of Alan Eugene Miller illustrates how these principles operated in practice. In 2022, before nitrogen hypoxia had ever been used, Huffaker granted Miller a preliminary injunction preventing a lethal injection. That ruling was not about nitrogen at all; it concerned whether Miller had submitted a form electing nitrogen hypoxia as his execution method. Huffaker found that Miller had "credible evidence" that he had submitted the form on time and that the state had "likely lost" it. In a significant line, he ruled that a prisoner's "final dignity" included the right to choose his method of death.⁶ When Miller returned to federal court in 2024 (after his botched execution), now challenging the nitrogen hypoxia protocol itself on Eighth Amendment grounds, the case never reached a ruling. In August 2024, weeks before a scheduled evidentiary hearing, Miller and the state reached a confidential settlement, and his lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice. Attorney General Marshall characterized the settlement as proof that "Alabama's nitrogen hypoxia system is reliable and humane." The absence of a judicial ruling meant that the questions Miller raised---whether Smith's execution demonstrated constitutional defects in the protocol---were never adjudicated. The state's assurances again carried considerable weight and Miller was executed by nitrogen hypoxia in September 2024. Witnesses reported that he too struggled and gasped for air, yet these observations did not alter Huffaker's approach.⁷

The litigation brought by Carey Dale Grayson further illustrates Huffaker's judicial methodology. Grayson's lawyers argued that the nitrogen hypoxia protocol was cruel and unusual because it provided no pre-execution medical examination, no sedation, relied on an untested mask with a risk of poor fit and offered no meaningful monitoring during the execution. At a hearing in October 2024, anesthesiologist Dr. Brian McAlary testified that Grayson would experience "agony" while conscious and deprived of oxygen and warned that negative pressure edema could occur---with the possibility of permanent brain injury if nitrogen were discontinued prematurely.⁸ Huffaker rejected nearly all of this testimony, writing that McAlary's predictions amounted to "speculation," echoing his previous characterization of Smith's claims, and singled out the doctor's conclusions about negative pressure edema as based on "extrapolations" and "inferences taken from hearsay eyewitness accounts of highly questionable value."⁹

In perhaps the most sweeping portion of the Grayson opinion, Huffaker addressed the question of pain itself. He emphasized that even if some pain existed, it was not constitutionally relevant, noting that McAlary had conceded the protocol would cause only psychological pain, which was "a type of pain that would exist regardless of the method of execution."¹⁰ Citing precedent, he held that "psychological pain or mental suffering cannot by itself support an Eighth Amendment claim."¹¹ This reasoning crystallized Huffaker's judicial philosophy: Unless a prisoner can show a substantial risk of severe physical pain with concrete evidence, the execution cannot be enjoined. Terror, panic, air hunger and mental anguish, even if extreme, are constitutionally irrelevant. Conflicting eyewitness accounts do not demonstrate unconstitutional harm; they merely demonstrate a lack of clarity.

Huffaker applied similarly rigorous skepticism to claims concerning religious exercise. Multiple inmates argued that the nitrogen mask, fitted tightly to the face, might be dislodged by audible prayer, interfering with or prolonging the execution. Huffaker rejected these arguments, ruling that the inmates "provided no evidence" that prayer could disturb the mask or that any disturbance would cause unconstitutional harm.¹² As with claims of physical suffering, hypothetical risk was insufficient to justify intervention.

Across these cases, a consistent judicial pattern emerges. Huffaker treated Alabama's nitrogen hypoxia protocol as presumptively reliable, even though it was unprecedented and untested in humans and repeatedly associated with visible distress. He required prisoners to demonstrate, with near-scientific perfection, that the method would cause severe physical pain, while expert predictions, clinical experience or observable distress were dismissed as conjectural unless demonstrably certain. Eyewitness accounts of real executions were considered unreliable if inconsistent or ambiguous, with ambiguities interpreted against the prisoners rather than the state. Psychological suffering, no matter how intense, was constitutionally irrelevant. And speculative harms to religious practice were insufficient to block an execution.

In this framework, Smith's execution was treated not as evidence of the method's dangers, but as evidence of its functional success. Once Smith died, even amid troubling observations, Huffaker and other courts treated nitrogen hypoxia as validated rather than questioned. This approach ensured that every subsequent nitrogen execution---Miller, Grayson and others---could proceed within the doctrinal architecture he had constructed.

The historical significance of Huffaker's rulings is notable. In the history of American execution methods, new techniques typically encounter intense judicial scrutiny. Electrocution, lethal gas and lethal injection each faced courts deeply concerned about untested procedures and the potential for extreme suffering. Huffaker's approach, in contrast, permitted a wholly unprecedented method to be used with minimal pre-execution evidence, interpreting uncertainty as insufficient to delay or block the state's actions. In Smith's case, the federal judiciary could have paused Alabama's attempt to pioneer a new way to kill. Instead, Huffaker dismissed warnings as speculative, endorsed the state's assurances and cleared the way. Every nitrogen execution since has unfolded within the legal philosophy he articulated, establishing a precedent that continues to shape the use of the method.

In conclusion, Judge R. Austin Huffaker Jr. did not simply adjudicate cases concerning nitrogen hypoxia. Through his rulings in Smith and Grayson, he created the judicial framework that made nitrogen hypoxia operational in Alabama and gave guidance beyond. By consistently elevating the state's assurances, dismissing speculative or psychological harm and requiring near-perfect proof of severe physical pain, Huffaker shaped the constitutional boundaries of the method. His decisions demonstrate how judicial interpretation can determine not just the outcome of a single case, but the trajectory of a completely novel execution method in the United States. Kenneth Smith's execution, permitted by Huffaker, remains the watershed moment, the point at which the federal judiciary could have intervened but chose not to, authorizing a controversial and untested method of death that has since been repeated under his jurisprudential guidance.

Endnotes

1. Smith v. Hamm, No. 2:23-cv-00656-RAH, 2024 WL 116303, at 43 (M.D. Ala. Jan. 10, 2024) (Huffaker, J.) (describing Smith's claims as "speculation" and "scientific controversy").

2. Ibid, 35-44 (court accepting Alabama's assurances regarding rapid unconsciousness and death).

3. Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Abbie VanSickle, "Alabama Carries Out First U.S. Execution by Nitrogen," New York Times, Jan. 25, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/26/us/alabama-nitrogen-execution.html; ACLU of Alabama, "Kenneth Smith Executed via Nitrogen Hypoxia," Jan. 26, 2024, https://www.aclualabama.org/en/news/kenneth-smith-executed-nitrogen-hypoxia (describing Smith gasping, heaving, shaking, and convulsing).

4. Grayson v. Hamm, No. 2:24-cv-00376-RAH, Memorandum Opinion, __ (M.D. Ala. Nov. 6, 2024) (Huffaker, J.) (describing eyewitness accounts as "conflicting and inconsistent").

5. Ibid. (court concluding execution was "successful" because death occurred within ten minutes).

6. Miller v. Hamm, No. 2:22-cv-00510, Preliminary Injunction Order (M.D. Ala. Sept. 19, 2022) (Huffaker, J.) (protecting Miller's "final dignity" to choose nitrogen hypoxia).

7. Miller v. Marshall, No. 2:24-cv-00197-RAH (M.D. Ala. filed Mar. 9, 2024), dismissed with prejudice Aug. 6, 2024 (case settled before ruling on Eighth Amendment claims); Alabama Attorney General's Office, Press Release, "Alabama Attorney General Marshall Successfully Defends Constitutionality of Nitrogen Hypoxia Method of Execution" (Aug. 7, 2024); Pool Witness Report, Alan Miller Execution, Holman Correctional Facility, Sept. 26, 2024 (reporting Miller shaking for two minutes and gasping intermittently for approximately six minutes).

8. Dr. Brian McAlary, Expert Testimony, 8--12, Grayson v. Hamm, No. 2:24-cv-00449 (M.D. Ala. Oct. 2024) (testifying Grayson would experience "agony" while conscious).

9. Grayson v. Hamm, Memorandum Opinion, 45 (M.D. Ala. Nov. 6, 2024) (Huffaker, J.) (describing edema warnings as unsubstantiated extrapolations from "hearsay eyewitness accounts of highly questionable value").

10. Ibid, 46 (finding protocol caused only "psychological pain, a type of pain that would exist regardless of the method of execution").

11. Ibid, 46 (citing precedent that "psychological pain or mental suffering cannot by itself support an Eighth Amendment claim").

12. Smith v. Hamm, No. 2:23-cv-00656-RAH, 2024 WL 116303 (M.D. Ala. Jan. 10, 2024) (Huffaker, J.) (rejecting RLUIPA claim and finding ADOC "provided substantial evidence that the mask will not dislodge if Smith audibly prays during his execution"); see also Smith v. Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections, No. 24-10095, slip op. at 7 (11th Cir. Jan. 24, 2024) (summarizing district court's RLUIPA ruling); see also Grayson v. Hamm, 47-48 ("could dislodging the mask prolonging execution ...").