Alabama takes steps toward using nitrogen as new execution method

But critics decry death penalty experimentation' that state is developing after a series of botched lethal injections

Alabama is close to completing a protocol that will use nitrogen gas as a new form of execution in the state, officials have said, amid warnings from advocacy groups that it is an experimental move after botched lethal injections.

On Wednesday, Alabama commissioner John Hamm, who heads the state's prison systems, told the Associated Press, We're close. We're close," in reference to the new execution method. Hamm added that the protocol should be completed by the end of this year.