Alabama, a southern state in the US, recently executed a convicted murderer named Kenneth Eugene Smith using nitrogen gas. This marked the first time this controversial method, criticised by human rights advocates, was employed in the country.
Kenneth Eugene Smith, aged 58, was declared dead at 8:25 pm local time, according to the state attorney general. Attorney General Steve Marshall stated, “Justice has been served. Tonight, Kenneth Smith was put to death for the heinous act he committed over 35 years ago.”
Smith had spent more than three decades on death row after being found guilty of the 1988 murder-for-hire of a pastor’s wife. The execution took place at Holman Prison in Atmore, Alabama, where nitrogen gas was pumped into a facemask worn by Smith, leading to his suffocation.
Witnesses reported that Smith showed signs of distress, including writhing and heavy breathing, during the process, which lasted approximately 40 minutes from the opening of the media witness room until his pronounced death.
Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, criticised Alabama’s use of the untested nitrogen hypoxia method, stating, “It’s never been used before to execute anyone in the United States, or anyone in the world as far as we know.”
Smith had previously faced a botched execution attempt in November 2022 when prison officials failed to administer a lethal injection due to difficulties in setting intravenous lines.
In an interview with National Public Radio, Smith expressed his fear and trauma regarding his upcoming execution, stating, “Everybody is telling me that I’m going to suffer.”
The last execution in the US using gas occurred in 1999, using hydrogen cyanide gas. In 2023, there were 24 executions in the United States, all carried out by lethal injection.
Alabama, along with Oklahoma and Mississippi, is one of three states in the US that have approved the use of nitrogen hypoxia as a method of execution.
Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the UN rights office in Geneva, criticised Alabama’s plan to execute Smith using a “novel and untested” method, raising concerns about its potential to constitute torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment under international human rights law.
While nitrogen gas has been used to euthanise animals, Shamdasani highlighted that even the American Veterinary Medical Association recommends sedation for large animals in this process, a provision absent in Alabama’s execution protocol.
Alabama defended the method, claiming it to be “perhaps the most humane method of execution ever devised.”
Kenneth Eugene Smith and his accomplice, John Parker, were convicted of the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Sennett, for which they were each paid $1,000. Charles Sennett, who had arranged his wife’s murder, committed suicide a week after her death. Parker was executed by lethal injection in 2010.
Smith appealed to the US Supreme Court for a stay of execution, but the request was denied.
A recent Gallup Poll indicated that 53% of Americans support the death penalty for someone convicted of murder, marking the lowest level of support since 1972.
Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 US states, while the governors of six others – Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee – have suspended its use.
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