Alabama is planning to carry out its fourth execution with nitrogen gas. Demetrius Terrence Frazier is scheduled to be executed Thursday night at a south Alabama prison.

Alabama is scheduled to execute murderer and rapist Demetrius Terrance Frazier by nitrogen gas at 6 p.m. Thursday. He was convicted in the 1991 rape and murder of 41-year-old Pauline Brown.

Demetrius Frazier’s lawyers are hoping that before he is taken to the execution chamber, MI Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will ask Alabama to halt the execution and send him back north.

A federal judge on Friday refused to stop what would be the fourth nitrogen gas execution in the U.S., saying the inmate had not proven his claims that the new method is unconstitutionally cruel and causes psychological terror.

The execution is set for 6:00 pm Central Time (0000 GMT) at a prison in Atmore, Alabama. The process will involve pumping nitrogen gas into a facemask, leading to suffocation. Alabama has already carried out three executions by this method last year.

A serial rapist and murderer is to be put to death by nitrogen gas in Alabama on Thursday, the fourth use of the controversial execution method in the southern US state. Alabama carried out three executions by nitrogen asphyxiation last year and is the only US state currently using the method.

Alabama is set to execute Demetrius Terrence Frazier on Thursday using nitrogen gas, making it the nation’s fourth execution by this method. Frazier, 52, was convicted of murdering Pauline Brown after breaking into her Birmingham apartment in 1991.

A federal judge has heard competing testimony over a request to block the nation's fourth execution using nitrogen gas.