An Alabama death row inmate, who is scheduled to die by nitrogen gas next month, is claiming that he should not be in Alabama’s hands at all.
Demetrius Terrence Frazier, 52, is expected to die during a 30-hour period beginning at midnight on Thursday, Feb. 6, and ending at 6 a.m. on Feb. 7. Frazier is going to die by inhaling pure nitrogen gas.
However, on Thursday afternoon, Frazier’s attorneys with the Federal Public Defenders filed a petition claiming that Frazier, who admitted to killing Pauline Brown in Jefferson County over 30 years ago, should not be in the state prison system.
In 1992, at the age of 19, Frazier found himself in jail in Michigan. Shortly after his arrest in 1991, Frazier confessed to killing Brown.
Multiple felonies led to Frazier’s conviction in Michigan. In 1995, Michigan officials transported Frazier to Alabama, where they prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced him to death. The Michigan authorities then took him back north.
Frazier remained in prison in Michigan, receiving three life terms for murder, criminal sexual conduct, and robbery in 1993. However, in 2011, then-Govs. Robert Bentley of Alabama and Rick Snyder of Michigan signed an executive agreement to move Frazier to Alabama, according to documents attached to the latest case.
The documentation offers no justification for initiating the transfer.
In 1963, the state constitution abolished the death penalty, making it illegal in Michigan.
Frazier’s attorneys are now alleging that the executive agreement was illegal and void, and they want the inmate returned to Michigan.
Spencer Hahn, one of Frazier’s lawyers, wrote to the current Michigan governor, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, in November, stating that Frazier is in the Michigan Department of Corrections’ legal custody and that Alabama’s execution would violate the northern state’s constitution. Hahn requested that the governor take all necessary steps to return Frazier to the physical custody of MDOC.
“You have a legal duty to preserve, protect, and defend the Michigan Constitution and Mr. Frazier requests you do so,” Hahn wrote.
Before the publishing of this story, Whitmer’s office had not responded to an AL.com request for comment.
According to the lawsuit, Whitmer told Hahn that “she would not act on his request at that time.”
In the Thursday lawsuit, Frazier’s lawyers argued his “Michigan life sentences have not been commuted and he has not been pardoned.” And the northern state’s law says, according to Frazier’s lawyers, that an inmate like Frazier “shall not be eligible for custodial incarceration outside a state correctional facility or a county jail.”
The Michigan Department of Corrections’ online database classifies Frazier as a prisoner, with his current status and location being Alabama.
According to the Alabama Department of Corrections’ inmate categorization profile, Frazier is an inmate “borrowed from Michigan.”
Frazier is also involved in a second federal case in the Middle District of Alabama challenging the state’s nitrogen execution protocols. A judge has scheduled a hearing in the case for January 28.
