MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama will attempt to put an inmate to death with nitrogen gas on Thursday night, a never before used execution method that the state claims will be humane but critics call cruel and experimental.
Kenneth Eugene Smith, a 58-year-old convicted killer whose 2022 lethal injection was called off at the last minute because authorities couldn’t connect an IV line, is scheduled to be executed at a south Alabama prison.
Alabama plans to put an industrial-type respirator mask over Smith’s face and replace his breathing air with pure nitrogen gas, causing him to die from lack of oxygen. The execution will be the first attempt to use a new execution method since the 1982 introduction of lethal injection, now the most common execution method in the United States.
Attorneys for Smith have waged a legal battle to halt the execution, arguing that the state is seeking to make Smith the “test case” for the new execution method that merits more legal scrutiny before it is used on an inmate.
“It’s an experiment,” said the Rev. Jeff Hood, Smith’s spiritual advisor and a death penalty opponent.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected Smith’s argument that it would be unconstitutional to make another attempt to execute him after the failed lethal injection. The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday night also declined to halt the the execution, saying Smith had not sufficiently supported claims the new execution method would violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. His attorneys are expected to appeal that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Smith is one of two men convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of Elizabeth Sennett. Prosecutors said he and the other man were each paid $1,000 to kill Sennett on behalf of her pastor husband, who was deeply in debt and wanted to collect on insurance.
Alabama plans to strap Smith to a gurney in the execution chamber — the same chamber where he was strapped down…
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