Alabama Executes Convicted Murderer Kenneth Smith Using New Method of Capital Punishment

ATMORE, Alabama – Convicted murderer Kenneth Smith held his breath in vain as officials asphyxiated him with nitrogen gas, the first use of a new method of capital punishment since lethal injections began in the United States four decades ago.

The execution was carried out on Smith, convicted of a 1988 murder-for-hire. He was a rare prisoner who had already survived one execution attempt. In November 2022, Alabama officials aborted his execution by lethal injection after struggling for hours to insert an intravenous line’s needle in his body.

The state has called its new closely watched protocol “the most painless and humane method of execution known to man”. It predicted Smith would lose consciousness in under a minute and die soon after, although witnesses on Thursday said it appeared to take several minutes longer.

Alabama has touted asphyxiation as a simpler alternative for prison systems that struggle to find either veins or the required drugs for lethal injections.

Human rights groups, United Nations torture experts and lawyers for Smith had sought to prevent it, saying the method was risky, experimental and could lead to an agonizing death or non-fatal injury.

In Smith’s second and final trip to the execution chamber on Thursday, executioners restrained him in a gurney and strapped a commercial industrial-safety respirator mask to his face. A canister of pure nitrogen was attached to the mask that, once flowing, deprived him of oxygen.

The execution began at 7:53 p.m. and Smith was declared dead at 8:25 p.m., prison officials said.

His wife and other relatives attended and he gestured towards them. “I’m leaving with love, peace and light,” he said, according to media witnesses. “Love all of you.”

Though poisonous gases such as hydrogen cyanide have been used in executions in the US and beyond in the past, this was the first time a death sentence was carried out anywhere using an inert gas to suffocate someone, capital punishment experts say.

Oklahoma and Mississippi have also approved nitrogen asphyxiation methods for executions, but have yet to deploy it.

The US Supreme Court’s conservative majority rejected Smith’s final appeal to delay his death on Thursday evening, and the execution began soon after.

“On March 18, 1988, 45-year-old Elizabeth Sennett’s life was brutally taken from her by Kenneth Eugene Smith,” Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, a Republican, said in a statement. “After more than 30 years and attempt after attempt to game the system, Smith has answered for his horrendous crimes.”