The state of Alabama is preparing to execute a condemned man using a new method, nitrogen hypoxia. The execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, is scheduled for Thursday, January 25. This man was convicted of the murder in 1988 of Elizabeth Bennett, wife of an unfaithful and over-indebted pastor, who wanted to collect his wife’s life insurance. The latter had given Kenneth Smith and an accomplice the sum of 1,000 dollars to kill her. The pastor had committed suicide; A jury sentenced Kenneth Smith to life in prison by 11 votes to one, but the judge decided to give him the death penalty.
This is not the first time that Kenneth Smith has visited the execution chamber. Already in November 2022, the state of Alabama tried to put him to death. For four hours, his executioners had tried to find a vein to inject a deadly cocktail. They even had him positioned upside down. In vain. The condemned man had been returned to his cell, like other prisoners whose executions had to be interrupted or turned into torture.
No state has ever used nitrogen, a neutral gas which makes up 78% of the air. This process was authorized in 2018 by Oklahoma, Mississippi and Alabama. It consists of attaching a mask to the condemned person, depriving him of oxygen. The operation is supposed to last fifteen minutes. According to the AP, the Alabama attorney general’s office told a federal judge that nitrogen gas “would cause loss of consciousness within seconds and cause death within minutes”.
For pigs
The American Veterinary Medical Association wrote in its 2020 euthanasia guidelines that nitrogen hypoxia may be an acceptable method of euthanasia under certain conditions for pigs but not for other mammals, because it creates a “harsh anoxic environment for certain species”. Kenneth Smith’s defenders have argued that oxygen leaks in the mask could prolong his agony or that the method could cause him to vomit and choke or leave him in a vegetative state. Following multiple appeals, the United States Supreme Court is expected to give its final green light to the execution by Thursday.
The last time a convict was executed by gas in the United States was in 1999, when a German, Walter LaGrand, was poisoned with hydrogen cyanide in an Arizona gas chamber for killing a bank branch manager. in 1982 during a botched hold-up, hitting him 24 times with a letter opener. Walter LaGrand took eighteen minutes to die.
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