2023-11-03 05:41:16
The Alabama Supreme Court authorized the state to execute a death row inmate using nitrogen gas. This is a method that has never been used in the United States. The inmate’s name is Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, who has already been the subject of failed execution attempts.
The all-Republican court made its decision 6 to 2. The justices granted state Attorney General Steve Marshall’s request for an execution order for Kenneth Eugene Smith, one of two men convicted of the murder-for-hire of Elizabeth Sennett occurred in 1988 in northwest Alabama, explained the AP agency.
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The order does not specify the method that will be used in Smith’s execution, but Alabama’s attorney general raised nitrogen hypoxia in court documents, he said. Univision.
The exact date of the execution must be set by Alabama Governor Kay Ivey.
The AP agency indicated that Alabama will be the first state to attempt an execution with nitrogen gas, although there will likely be litigation over the proposed new execution method first.
In addition to Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississippi have authorized nitrogen hypoxia for the death penalty, but none have attempted to use it.
AP explained that under the proposed method, an inmate would be forced to breathe only nitrogen, depriving him of the oxygen necessary to maintain bodily functions and thus causing his death. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen.
Although proponents of the method have said death will be painless, detractors compare it to human experimentation, the AP said.
The death penalty in the United States. (AFP).
The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) said in a statement that Alabama’s protocol “does not provide any guarantee of safety for people in the mortuary chamber, nor does it address how the state will prevent gas from escaping. the camera and affects the witnesses.”
According to anesthesiologist Joel Zivot, cited by the DPIC, nitrogen gas “is dangerous for anyone nearby.”
“There are still too many unanswered questions for Alabama officials to responsibly move forward with this protocol,” said Robin Maher, executive director of the DPIC.
For his part, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall praised the ruling. “It cleared the way for Kenneth Eugene Smith to be executed for nitrogen hypoxia,” he said.
Smith’s attorneys had petitioned the Alabama Supreme Court to reject the nitrogen execution. They argued that the inmate should not be a “test subject” for the new method of execution.
After the ruling, attorney Robert Grass vowed to continue the legal fight and noted in a statement that two judges, Chief Justice Tom Parker and Judge Greg Cook, disagreed with Wednesday’s decision, AP noted.
This Sept. 21, 2010 photo shows the room where the death penalty by lethal injection is carried out at San Quentin State Prison, California. (Photo: AP).
They didn’t find the vein
Last year, Kenneth Eugene Smith was already on the verge of being executed by lethal injection. But the Alabama Department of Corrections canceled the execution because the two required intravenous lines could not be inserted into the inmate’s veins.
Commissioner John Hamm said then that prison staff tried for an hour, the maximum time limit legally allowed, to connect the inmate’s two IV lines.
A day after the botched execution, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey announced that executions would be suspended in the state to allow for an internal review of lethal injection procedures.
Since 2018, that was the third attempt to execute Smith.
Following his botched 2022 execution, Smith argued in district court that the state should not try to execute him again by lethal injection.
The crime for which Smith was convicted
Kenneth Eugene Smith was one of two men convicted in the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Sennett, 45, the wife of preacher Charles Sennett, which occurred that same year in Colbert County, Alabama.
According to the indictment, cited by Univision, Smith and his accomplice John Forrest Parker each received $1,000 to kill Sennett.
The woman’s husband plotted the crime because he was deeply in debt and wanted to collect the money from her life insurance. Sennett was stabbed and beaten with a fireplace utensil.
A week after the crime, the pastor committed suicide because he was being considered a suspect.
While John Forrest Parker was executed in 2010.
“I’m sorry. I don’t expect them to ever forgive me. I’m truly sorry,” Parker said to the victim’s children before being executed.
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