According to this, Alabama will be the first US state to execute a prisoner by forcing him to breathe pure nitrogen New York Post.
The method of killing death row inmates was legal in two other states, Oklahoma and Mississippi, but was never used.
Nitrogen hypoxia results when the prisoner is forced to breathe only nitrogen, killing them by depriving them of oxygen.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall on Friday asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date for 58-year-old death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith.
The file revealed that Alabama intended to kill him via nitrogen hypoxia.
Smith was one of two men convicted of the 1988 contract killing of a minister’s wife.
“It is ridiculous that Kenneth Smith escaped the death penalty for nearly 35 years after being convicted of the heinous murder by contract of an innocent woman, Elizabeth Sennett,” Steve Marshall said in a statement.
test on a human
Opponents of this new method of execution have pointed out that it was a form of human experimentation, while some believe the inmate could die without pain.
Alabama’s intentions to use nitrogen hypoxia are expected to spark fresh debate over its constitutionality.
Alabama tried to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith by lethal injection last year but was unable to get an IV drip into his veins. It was the second time in two months and the third time since 2018 that the state had failed to kill an inmate.
Kenneth Eugene Smith was paid $1,000 for killing a pastor’s wife in 1988 with the help of an accomplice. The latter was carried out in 2010.
The victim’s indebted husband, Charles Sennett, wanted to collect the insurance money. He committed suicide when the police investigation began looking at him as a suspect.