An Alabama prison executed a Detroit man Thursday evening after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declined to intervene, ignoring pleas from his family, attorneys, and death penalty opponents who argued she had the authority to demand his return to Michigan, where the death penalty has been abolished.
Demetrius Frazier, 52, was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m. CST, executed by nitrogen gas at Holman Correctional Facility in Alabama for the 1991 rape and murder of 41-year-old Pauline Brown in Birmingham.
“First of all I want to apologize to the family and friends of Pauline Brown. What happened to Pauline Brown should have never happened,” Frazier said.
He added, “I love everybody on death row. Detroit Strong.”
Frazier also reportedly called out Whitmer for refusing to act.
Alabama officials put Frazier to death using nitrogen hypoxia, a controversial method that critics call inhumane and painful. Alabama pioneered the use of nitrogen gas for executions last year, killing three people with the method. The process involves fitting a respirator over the inmate’s face and replacing oxygen with pure nitrogen, causing suffocation.
Witnesses said Frazier trembled on the gurney, though less severely than those executed before him, the Associated Press reports.
In federal court last week, Frazier’s attorneys argued that nitrogen gas is a form of torture. A judge rejected the challenge, ruling that there was no proof that the method caused “severe psychological pain or distress over and above what is inherent in any execution.”
Four hours before the execution, death penalty opponents blasted Whitmer for what they called an unprecedented betrayal of Michigan’s long-standing opposition to capital punishment.
“Today, Governor Whitmer and Mr. Frazier are making history, in the wrong way,” Abraham Bonowitz, director of Death Penalty Action, said in a statement. “Whitmer is permitting the first execution of a Black person by nitrogen gas during the first week of Black History Month. She is allowing the first-ever execution of a Michigan prisoner, upending two centuries of Michigan’s storied opposition to executions.”
Michigan abolished the death penalty in 1847, becoming the first U.S. state to do so.
For weeks, Frazier’s family and legal team had pressed Whitmer to order his return to Michigan, where he was already serving life in prison for a separate murder. Attorneys argued Michigan maintained legal custody over Frazier, despite his 2011 transfer to Alabama, which was approved under a secretive agreement by then-Gov. Rick Snyder.
Whitmer, a Democrat who has repeatedly voiced opposition to the death penalty, claimed her hands were tied.
“It’s in the hands of Kay Ivey,” Whitmer said, referring to Alabama’s governor.
In a statement to Metro Times on Friday morning, Bonowitz expressed frustration with Whitmer.
“If Michigan had stood by its principals, she could have let the courts sort it out, and if that had happened, it is quite possible that Demetrius Frazier would not have become the first Michigan prisoner to be executed in the history of the state,” Bonowitz said.
Frazier’s family said Whitmer never responded to their pleas.
His mother, Carol Frazier, delivered a letter and petition signatures to Whitmer’s office last week, begging her to intervene.
“Please do not let Alabama put him to death,” she wrote. “I have been told that if you demand that Alabama return him, there is a very good chance they would have to. Alabama suffocates their prisoners now. A lot of people have spoken out to say this is wrong.”
Michigan governors have previously blocked the extradition of inmates to death penalty states. In a nearly identical case, Michigan refused to send Clarence Ray Jr. to California, where he faced execution.
“You have the absolute authority to demand Mr. Frazier’s return,” his attorney, Spencer Hahn, wrote to Whitmer.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, also failed to act, missing a chance to at least let the courts decide whether Frazier should be returned to Michigan.
“Frazier’s lawyers had to give up his lawsuit because Attorney General Nessel told the court they didn’t want to pursue the matter,” Bonowitz said. “All Carol Frazier wanted was to be acknowledged, and for Governor Whitmer to try. And there is Governor Whitmer’s failure — not even trying.”
Frazier, who was 19 when he killed Brown, later confessed to the 1999 murder of 14-year-old Crystal Kendrick in Michigan. He was convicted in Wayne County and sentenced to three life terms.
In his final statement, Frazier suggested that he falsely confessed to killing Kendrick.
In 1995, Alabama temporarily extradited him for trial in Brown’s murder. A jury convicted him and recommended the death penalty by a 10-2 vote. At the time, Alabama and Florida were the only states that did not require a unanimous jury for death sentences.
The execution was Alabama’s first this year and the nation’s fourth using nitrogen gas.
Before the execution, Bonowitz knew there was little hope after Whitmer refused to get involved.
“The fact that this is yet another experimental gas suffocation execution — the first of a Black man — should offend all of us,” Bonowitz said. “Other than state officials, anyone who witnessed the suffocations of Kenny Smith, Alan Miller, and Carey Grayson will tell you just how torturous it is. Tonight the State of Alabama will traumatize another batch of eyewitnesses to this unnecessary horror.”
