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USA - Alabama. Gregory Hunt, 65, White, was executed on June 10
June 10, 2025: June 10, 2025 - Alabama. Gregory Hunt, 65, White, was executed on June 10
By nitrogen gas
Alabama executed Gregory Hunt for the 1988 rape and murder of Karen Lane, 32, White. Lane was killed on Aug. 2, 1988. Hunt had dated Lane for about a month. Prosecutors said that after becoming enraged with jealousy, he broke into Lane’s apartment and sexually abused her and beat her to death, inflicting 60 injuries on her body. Hunt acknowledged killing Lane, saying it was a crime of passion driven by jealousy, but denied raping her. Jurors convicted him in 1990 and recommended a death sentence by an 11-1 vote.
Hunt was pronounced dead at 6:26 p.m. CT at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.
It was the fifth nitrogen gas execution in the state since January 2024, and the sixth in the nation overall.
When the curtains to the death chamber opened, Hunt was strapped to a gurney, wrapped in a white sheet and had a mask over his face, according to Alex Gladden, a witness to the execution for the Montgomery Advertiser.
At 5:57 p.m., Hunt began gasping and lifted his head. Then his entire body began convulsing. He lifted his head again two minutes later before his head fell back and he groaned loudly, Gladden observed.
Hunt’s head continued to move and he kept gasping for several minutes before he appeared to take his last breath at 6:04 p.m. His left fist remained clenched long afterward.
Witness accounts from the previous four nitrogen gas executions in Alabama describe "suffering, including conscious terror for several minutes, shaking, gasping, and other evidence of distress," Louisiana Chief District Judge Shelly Dick wrote in an opinion that temporarily blocked the nitrogen gas execution of Jessie Hoffman in her state in March.
That violates constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment, inmate advocates say. The states using the method defend it as effective and constitutional, and one official in another state considering approving the method recently said that it may very well be painful, according to reporting by the Ohio Capital Journal.
“The Constitution doesn’t guarantee a pain-free death," said Lou Tobin, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, the Journal reported. “We don’t want to cause them unnecessary pain. ... But whatever they experience as part of an execution pales in comparison to the pain and suffering that they’ve inflicted on their victims.”
Hunt becomes the 1st person to be executed this year in Alabama, the 81st since the state resumed executions in 1983, the 21st person executed this year in the US and the n° 1628 overall since the nation resumed executions in 1977.
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/06/10/anthony-wainwright-greg-hunt-executions-florida-alabama/84136562007/ (Source: Usa Today, 10/06/2025)
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