Human rights experts are alarmed by Alabama’s plan to use an experimental method of execution to put a prisoner to death this month.
“We are concerned that nitrogen hypoxia would result in a painful and humiliating death,” experts said in a statement from the United Nations Wednesday.
The statement cites experts’ concerns over the “grave suffering” an execution by pure nitrogen inhalation may cause and notes a lack of scientific evidence to prove otherwise. Nitrogen hypoxia, though approved in three states, has never been used for the purpose in the U.S.
Alabama plans to use this method on Kenneth Eugene Smith on Jan. 25. Smith was convicted in a 1998 murder-for-hire plot and has served 34 years on death row. In 2022, Smith became the second Alabama death row prisoner in less than two months to survive an attempted execution by the state.
In addition to the use of untested drugs, U.N. experts called out the U.S’s history of botched executions and a lack of transparency in execution protocols Wednesday.
In 2022, a string of botched executions prompted Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to put a moratorium on executions.
The Alabama Department of Corrections heavily redacted a document outlining protocols for carrying out executions by nitrogen hypoxia. According to what was made available, prisoners will be placed on a gurney, then fitted with a mask and breathing tube that pumps nitrogen gas for up to 15 minutes, slowly depriving the person of oxygen.
U.N. experts warned that experimental executions by gas asphyxiation violate several international agreements that prohibit torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment. “Punishments that cause severe pain or suffering, beyond harms inherent in lawful sanctions likely violate the Convention against Torture,” the statement noted. The Convention against Torture is an international treaty the U.S. signed in 1988, along with 83 countries.
Officials also named the Body of Principles for the Protection of All…
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