Alabama to execute prisoner for the first time in over two years

Christopher Eugene Brooks is scheduled to receive the lethal injection on Thursday after murdering a woman in 1992

Christopher Eugene Brooks has been on death row for over 20 years (Alabama Department of Corrections via AP)

A man who has been on death row for over 20 years is set to become the second prisoner in Alabama to receive the death penalty since 2013.

43-year-old Christoper Eugene Brooks is scheduled to be given a lethal injection on Thursday, despite his lawyers arguing to postpone the penalty after similar lethal drugs administered in Oklahoma failed to kill the prisoner quickly, as reported by Associated Press.

Mr Brooks was convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering a woman in 1992. He first met 23-year-old Jo Deann when they were both camp counselors in upstate New York.

Police found traces of his semen on Ms Dean’s lifeless body under her bed in her apartment. Police also found Mr Brooks had Ms Dean’s car keys and had cashed her paycheck.

At the trial, Mr Brooks' lawyers argued that another man present that night in Ms Dean’s apartment could have committed the murder.

A jury recommended a death sentence, voting 11 to 1, and the judge delivered the final sentence. Mr Brooks is set to die at 6pm CST at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, according to authorities.

The death penalty on Thursday would be the first state execution since 2013 due to a shortage of drugs and ongoing litigation.

It will also be the first execution to use a new cocktail of drugs, including midazolam, which renders the inmate unconscious.

Mr Brooks' lawyers have argued that midazolam used in Oklahoma meant it took 43 minutes for one prisoner to die.

Six Alabama inmates are arguing that midazolam will not prevent them from feeling the following injections of rocuronium bromide and potassium chloride, which stop their lungs and hearts.

“Brooks should not be the subject of Alabama's experiment to see if it can carry out an execution using this protocol while the very validity of the protocol is at issue in ongoing federal court proceedings,” Assistant Federal Defender John Palombi wrote in the filing to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, as reported by Associated Press.

Mr Brooks' lawyer has also asked the Supreme Court to review the case following Florida’s decision to crack down on the amount of authority that judges have in deciding whether or not to sentence someone to death.

The last inmate to be executed in Alabama, and the first since 2011, was Andrew Reid Lackey. He was given the lethal injection on 25 July, 2013, for killing Charles Newman during a robbery in 2005.