By Mike Cason
al.com
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A safety consulting company in Tennessee has stopped its work for the state of Alabama related to the development of a nitrogen method of execution.
FDR Safety, based in Franklin, Tenn., was hired to develop guidelines to protect Alabama Department of Corrections employees, Steve Hawkins, chief operations officer for the company, said.
The decision to stop the work came after the pastor of a Franklin church and others protested at the company’s headquarters on Feb. 14 and presented a letter denouncing the company’s involvement in Alabama’s new execution method, The Tennessean reported.
“The state of Alabama was notified that FDR Safety did not intend to perform any more work under the contract,” Hawkins told AL.com.
Other than that, Hawkins declined to comment beyond what he told The Tennesseean, which was that FDR Safety’s work was limited to protecting Department of Corrections employees.
“It’s our belief that all employees’ safety and health deserves to be protected if it’s legal work,” Hawkins said.
Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office hired FDR Safety under a contract in July 2019. The contract was to pay the company $300 an hour up to a total amount of $25,000, according to information from the Legislature’s contract review committee.
AL.com requested a copy of the contract at that time to learn more about what the company would be doing. Marshall’s office denied the request.
The state’s open records law requires state agencies to make contracts and other records available to the public. Marshall’s office said the FDR Safety contract fell under exceptions in the open records law regarding security and the best interests of the public.
Friday, Marshall’s office declined comment when asked about FDR Safety’s decision to discontinue the work.
That follows a policy of secrecy the state has maintained about development of the new method of execution.
In 2018, the Alabama Legislature passed a bill allowing inmates to opt for execution by nitrogen hypoxia. The method would be an alternative to lethal injection. Death row inmates were given a limited amount of time to opt for execution by nitrogen hypoxia instead of lethal injection.
No state has performed an execution using nitrogen, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The concept is that the inmate would breath only nitrogen and would die from oxygen deprivation.
Oklahoma and Mississippi have also passed laws authorizing the method.
In a court filing in August 2021, Alabama told a federal judge the state had finished construction of a system to carry out nitrogen executions. The state did not explain how it would work.
“The ADOC has completed the initial physical build on the nitrogen hypoxia system. A safety expert has made a site visit to evaluate the system. As a result of the visit, the ADOC is considering additional health and safety measures,” a lawyer for the state attorney general’s office wrote in the court filing.
In another court filing in November 2021, lawyers for the state said it would be safe for an inmate’s spiritual adviser to be in the death chamber during a nitrogen execution.
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