Alabama is poised to become the first state in the world to kill an inmate by forcing him to breathe pure nitrogen. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office announced plans Friday to carry out the death sentence of Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, by nitrogen hypoxia, which deprives inmates of oxygen and suffocates them. So far in the United States, only three states have approved the use of this method for executions – Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississippi – but none have yet used it.
Smith was convicted in 1988 of the contract killing of Elizabeth Sennett, the wife of a pastor at the Westside Church of Christ in Sheffield, northern Alabama. The latter, who was having an affair, wanted to capitalize on various of his wife’s life insurance policies. Smith was scheduled to be killed by lethal injection last year, but after four hours of execution attempts, the execution failed because the IV could not be inserted into his veins.
“Alabama is not in a position to experiment with a method that has never been used before. This is cruel and ruthless,” the NGO Equal Justice Initiative told the Associated Press. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air around us and is safe to breathe. However, when oxygen is deprived it becomes fatal, causing unconsciousness and suffocation.
The inmate says he is “completely terrified” after a failed attempt to kill him with a lethal injection. In his interview with the Sunday Times yesterday, in which he told his story, he recalled how one of his executioners told him: “Lethal injection is painless, with nitrogen no one knows what will happen.”
Last month, Alabama’s attorney general called for the execution to be carried out again, this time using nitrogen hypoxia.
Smith is one of 166 people awaiting execution on Alabama, the largest death row in the United States. The death penalty is in effect in 24 of the 50 U.S. states, while three others are in limbo because sitting governors refuse to sign death warrants.
More than half of Americans support the death penalty in some circumstances, but support is declining. In addition, pharmaceutical companies are increasingly reluctant to provide the toxic drugs needed for executions, which is one reason Alabama and other states are seeking methods other than lethal injection. South Carolina, for example, now forces prisoners on death row to choose between the firing squad and the electric chair.