- Alabama turns to Gas for executions amid turmoil over lethal injection
Alabama is set to become the first state to execute a prisoner by making him breathe pure nitrogen, a death penalty method that is authorized by three states but has never been used.
The office of Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall asked the state Supreme Court in a court filing on Friday, August 25, to set an execution date for 58-year-old death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith.
The filing revealed Alabama intends to put him to death by nitrogen hypoxia.
Nitrogen hypoxia is caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, which deprives them of oxygen and kills them.
The air inhaled by people includes 78% nitrogen but is harmless when inhaled with oxygen.
Why Smith will die
Smith was one of two men convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of a preacher’s wife.
‘It is a travesty that Kenneth Smith has been able to avoid his death sentence for nearly 35 years after being convicted of the heinous murder-for-hire slaying of an innocent woman, Elizabeth Sennett,’ Marshall said in a statement.
Alabama authorized nitrogen hypoxia in 2018 during a shortage of drugs used to carry out lethal injections, but the state has not used the method to carry out a death sentence.
Controversy surrounds the death method
Oklahoma and Mississippi also authorized nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method but have not used it.
Opponents of the death method have argued that it is a form of human experimentation and the move in Alabama is expected to spark new legal battles over its constitutionality.
The Equal Justice Initiative, a legal advocacy group that opposes the death penalty, said Alabama has a history of ‘failed and flawed executions and execution attempts’ and ‘experimenting with a never before used method is a terrible idea.’
‘No state in the country has executed a person using nitrogen hypoxia and Alabama is in no position to experiment with a completely unproven and unused method for executing someone,’ Equal Justice Initiative senior attorney Angie Setzer said.
According to reports, Alabama attempted to execute Smith by lethal injection last year but failed to carry it out because of issues with inserting an IV into his veins.
This was the second time in two months and the third since 2018 that the state was unsuccessful in putting an inmate to death.
