Four UN rapporteurs expressed concern this Wednesday about the impending execution by nitrogen of a man sentenced to death in the United States, warning that this method, unprecedented in the world, could cause “severe suffering”. This type of execution results in death due to hypoxia or lack of oxygen.
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The United Nations' independent experts said they were concerned about the “severe suffering that nitrogen execution could cause” and said in a statement that there was “no scientific evidence” to prove otherwise.
The statement was signed by Special Rapporteurs on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Morris TidballBinz, Alice Jill Edwards, Margaret Satterthwaite and Tlaleng Mofokeng. According to them, the state of Alabama in the southern US intends to execute Kenneth Smith on January 25th.
“It will be the first fullscale test of nitrogen hypoxia,” say the rapporteurs, who received their mandate from the United Nations Human Rights Council but do not speak on behalf of the organization. “We fear that nitrogen hypoxia will lead to a painful and humiliating death,” they emphasized.
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In his opinion, “experimental executions by gas asphyxiation, such as nitrogen hypoxia, would likely violate the prohibition on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishments.” Therefore, they called on federal and state authorities in Alabama to suspend Smith's execution and all others with it method to suspend planned executions pending review of the protocol.
Understand the case
In November 2022, Smith's execution by lethal injection for a 1988 contract killing was canceled at the last minute because the intravenous droppers used to inject the lethal solution could not be administered to the condemned within the legally required time.
His death sentence caused controversy. In 1988, an unfaithful and heavily indebted husband hired him and another hitman to kill his wife in a staged robbery. Despite the man's suicide, the police followed the trail of the two murderers.
Smith was sentenced to death in an initial trial, but this was overturned on appeal.
At a second trial in 1996, he was again found guilty of murder, but the jury was divided on the verdict: 11 of the 12 recommended life sentences.
The judge disregarded the jury's decision and imposed the death penalty, which was legal at the time but is now banned throughout the country. On this basis, his lawyers asked the Supreme Court of the United States this Wednesday to stay the execution, but the Supreme Court rejected the appeal.
Death penalty in the USA
According to a recent Gallup poll, 53% of Americans support the death penalty for some people convicted of murder. This is the lowest percentage since 1972, when the Supreme Court blocked executions in the country, which were reinstated four years later.
Twentythree states across the country have abolished the death penalty, while three additional states (California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania) have a moratorium on its use. Alabama and neighboring Florida are the only two US states that can sentence a prisoner to death without a unanimous verdict.
In 2023, 23 executions were carried out in the United States. Texas was the state that carried out the most executions with eight, followed by Alabama with two. All death sentences were carried out by lethal injection.