A federal district judge has rejected Alabama murderer Carey Dale Grayson’s petition to block his November 21 execution. Ivana Hrynkiw of the Birmingham News reports that Grayson will be the third murderer that the state has executed by nitrogen gas this year. His attorneys argued before District Judge Austin Huffaker that the execution method violates the Eighth Amendment bar against cruel and unusual punishment. The judge noted that it had been used successfully and that there was no evidence that it caused any pain. Grayson at 19, was the oldest of four teens who picked up 37-year-old Vicki Lynn DeBlieux who was hitchhiking to her mother’s home in February of 1994. They took her into the woods, beat her to death then threw her body into a ravine. Like the other Alabama murderers executed by nitrogen gas, Grayson chose that method over execution via the electric chair.
