Although Black people make up only 26% of the Alabama population they are 50% of prisoners on death row

From [HERE] Alabama and Mississippi have undertaken preparatory steps towards resuming executions in the face of continuing legal challenges to their methods of execution. 

On August 2, 2021, Alabama’s Department of Corrections (ADOC) notified a federal judge that it had “completed the initial physical build on the nitrogen hypoxia system” that would use nitrogen hypoxia to kill prisoners. The method is untested, and the state also indicated in its filing that it had yet to develop an execution protocol for the method. The filing came in a case in which death-row prisoner Charles Burton has challenged Alabama’s refusal to allow his spiritual advisor to accompanying him to the execution chamber to provide religious support.

In a status report filed in Burton’s case, the Alabama Attorney General’s office said that a safety expert had visited the prison “to evaluate the system.” “As a result of the visit,” state prosecutors wrote, “the ADOC is considering certain additional health and safety measures.” Claiming “security concerns,” ADOC refused a request from Associated Press to provide any details of the “initial physical build of the nitrogen hypoxia system” it intends to use to carry out the executions. ADOC still has not indicated whether it is constructing a separate execution chamber for gas executions or is building a nitrogen-hypoxia apparatus for use in the state’s current death chamber.

On July 29, 2021, lawyers for the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) said in court papers filed in a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state’s execution process that the state had acquired the sedative midazolam, the paralytic drug vecuronium bromide, and the heart-stopping drug potassium chloride for use in lethal-injection executions. MDOC did not disclose where or from whom the state obtained the drugs, the manufacturer of the drugs, or details about the drugs themselves, such as their expiration date, how many doses were acquired, how much the drugs cost, and whether the drugs were mass produced by a pharmaceutical company or individually prepared by a compounding pharmacy.

Although Black people make up only 37% of the Mississippi population they are 58% of prisoners on death row