Alabama said nitrogen gas would remain an option, but that lethal injection would also remain in use and it would be up those on death row whether they wanted to die by nitrogen gas or lethal injection.
Lawmakers are hoping to get tough on crime, while offering some protections for law enforcement officers.
Nitrogen gas can be purchased easily without a license from manufacturers, industrial suppliers or even online retailers.
South Carolina’s death chamber, unused since May 2011, could suddenly get quite busy.
Around 60 people currently sit on Louisiana’s death row, according to the Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections.
South Carolina has not carried out an execution since 2011 after the state’s supply of lethal injection drugs expired and companies refused to sell them more unless the transaction could be kept secret.
James Barber was convicted in the 2001 beating death of 75-year-old Dorothy Epps.
Big changes are coming to the Department of Health and Environmental Control.
‘The fact of the matter is that an agency that has failed repeatedly to get its own house in order cannot be trusted to privately conduct an investigation into problems it is causing.’
Two years ago, the Legislature passed a law creating a firing squad and giving inmates a choice between dying by bullets to the heart or in the state’s electric chair.
