Kenneth Eugene Smith, 59, was executed at 8:25 p.m. local time in Alabama after the execution was postponed for several hours to await the outcome of the latest appeal to the US Supreme Court. This was reported by Atmore's local television station Whnt, which included a reporter among its witnesses. The new method of execution was used for him, which, according to the local judicial authorities, “is perhaps the most humane ever invented.” After the Supreme Court rejected the final appeal, the final procedure to impose the death sentence using pure nitrogen began at Holman Prison at 7 p.m. local time, for the first time in the world. Smith was tied to a cot in the death chamber at Holmes Prison and forced to inhale a high concentration of nitrogen gas through a mask. The witnesses were led into the room next to the execution room. Just before putting on the mask that would allow him to breathe in the gas, Smith spoke his final words: “Tonight,” he said, “Alabama takes humanity one step back.” I leave with love, peace and light, I love you. “Thank you for supporting me, I love you all.” Smith made a heart sign with his left hand as the guard read him the execution order. He continued to make hand gestures and signs of love for the family behind the glass.
Nitrogen hypoxia what happens
The idea of using the nitrogen hypoxia method came from a science fiction and horror film screenwriter, Stuart Creque, who thought that industrial accidents could be applied to executions.
Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air we breathe. However, increasing this percentage is fatal because it reduces the amount of oxygen, but even a small amount of air passing through the mask could slow the condemned man's death. For his part, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern that “nitrogen hypoxia could cause a painful and humiliating death” and stated that execution by this method “could amount to torture” or be “degrading under international human rights standards.”
The life sentence was commuted to the death penalty
By 11 votes in favor and one against, the jury sentenced Smith to life in prison. A judge challenged the sentence and commuted it to the death penalty. That wouldn't be possible today because Alabama passed a law in 2017 that prohibits judges from changing the verdicts of popular juries. But Smith was unlucky, he had no way of knowing that a new law was coming.
The first execution failed in 2022
Smith was convicted in 1988 of the murder of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, the wife of a Protestant minister. The religious man, who later committed suicide, wanted to get his lover's life insurance and decided to kill her. But religion forbade him, so he paid Smith a thousand dollars. Incarcerated on death row since 1996, he survived a first execution by lethal injection last year. They had tried patiently for three hours, inserting the needles dozens of times into her arms and neck at collarbone level. Tilt the stretcher ninety degrees in a crucifixion style to facilitate needle penetration. It didn't go well. The patient was uncooperative. Despite good experience, the executioners could not kill him, only torture him. Despite the precedent, the justices refused to hear his lawyers' argument that a second attempt at execution – after the attacks caused by the failure of the first attempt – would violate the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment
Unheard of appeals
Numerous appeals to prevent the death penalty using a method that various experts believe amounts to a form of torture have been unsuccessful. The latest came from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: “The death penalty is incompatible with the fundamental right to life.” There is no evidence that this deters crime. Instead of inventing new ways to implement the death penalty, we call on all states to introduce a moratorium on its use as a step towards global abolition.”
The practice is also being abandoned in the veterinary sector
The nitrogen mask was never used on humans, in veterinary medicine only on pigs, but then abandoned because of the high risk of not leading to immediate death, but to strokes and vegetative state. It therefore raises troubling ethical and medical-scientific questions. “We can say that it is a way of carrying out an uncertain death sentence that could also prolong the torment,” explains Pasquale Giuseppe Macrì, professor of forensic medicine. “When using this type of mask, oxygen is replaced with nitrogen, an inert gas. When the oxygen is removed and the amount of nitrogen is increased, some vital processes are gradually interrupted and a barrier is created in the exchange between the lungs and blood, the lungs fill with nitrogen, but – notes Macrì – it takes time because First, all the oxygen already bound to the hemoglobin has to be used up, then it takes time because the tissues have different resistances. Maybe the kidney dies first, then the brain, then the heart.” “But there is also an economic problem with the choice of nitrogen: pharmaceutical companies no longer supply drugs for lethal injections because they do not want to associate the brand with these procedures . “That’s why the authorities have to find other ways.”