As Alabama execution looms, supporters of death row inmate turn to Michigan governor

by Ralph Chapoco, Alabama Reflector
February 4, 2025

Alabama’s plan to execute Demetrius Frazier on Thursday could be complicated if the governor of Michigan attempts to intervene.

Frazier, convicted of the 1991 rape and murder of Pauline Brown in Birmingham, is scheduled to be put to death by nitrogen gas. Frazier was serving a life sentence in Michigan after being convicted of murdering 14-year-old Crystal Kendrick in 1992. He was convicted of Brown’s murder in 1996 but was incarcerated in Michigan until being transferred to Alabama in 2011.

Frazier’s mother Carol and friends and family of Frazier asked Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to intervene last week.

“I love my son with all my heart,” Carol Frazier stated in her letter. “I know my son has changed. Demetrius has repented. He has asked God for forgiveness. He has also told me he has made a mistake and wish he could take it back.”

Whitmer has not publicly weighed in on the case. A message was sent to the Michigan Governor’s Office on Monday seeking comment. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel wrote in a filing last month that the state “does not seek to return Frazier to a Michigan correctional facility.”

“The question before our office was not whether or not the attorney general should intervene, but whether that transfer was appropriate and legal under Michigan law, which we determined it was,” said Danny Wimmer, press secretary for the Michigan AG’s Office in a statement last Tuesday. “Outside of that, this department does not intervene in other states’ criminal matters.”

Frazier’s legal options have narrowed considerably in the past week after two of his lawsuits have stalled in the courts. A federal district court judge for the Middle District of Alabama denied his request for a preliminary injunction on Friday.

Demetrius also asked a court to dismiss a second federal lawsuit after Nessel said they were not seeking to return Frazier to Michigan. No further appeals had been filed with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals as of early Monday afternoon.

Alabama carried out six executions in 2024, more than any other state. Three involved nitrogen gas. Michigan abolished the death penalty in 1847.

Shortly after the Alabama Supreme Court granted the state’s motion, Frazier, like other inmates subjected to nitrogen gas, argued that Alabama’s current nitrogen protocol violates his Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment, citing testimony from experts and witnesses from the previous nitrogen gas executions carried out by the state.

The judge ruled in favor of the state, stating that “Frazier has failed to show a substantial likelihood of success on the merits — ‘the most important preliminary-injunction criterion.’”

U.S. District Judge Emily Marks, relying  on testimony from Joseph Antognini, anesthesiologist and witness from the state, ruled for Alabama, writing that “the oxygen deprivation resulting from inhaling nitrogen materially differs from the oxygen deprivation occasioned by other forms of suffocation, such as smothering with a pillow.”

Marks dismissed witness testimony of inmates struggling under the gas, saying they ‘cannot reliably pinpoint when an inmate loses consciousness.’”

Frazier filed another lawsuit claiming that he is technically in the custody of the Michigan Department of Corrections and was transferred to the custody of the ADOC after an executive agreement was signed by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley in 2011, according to Frazier’s defense team.

Supporters have urged Whitmer to intervene.

“Michigan was the first state to legislatively abolish the death penalty, and the state has a constitutional prohibition on executions,” said Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, who helped deliver the signed petition to Whitmer. “Human rights norms usually keep counties and states from sending prisoners to places where they face human rights violations, but in Mr. Frazier’s case they inexplicably decided to ship him off to Alabama to be killed.”

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

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