UPDATE: Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, was served his last meal and then put to death Thursday night by nitrogen gas. He was pronounced dead at 8:25 p.m. after breathing pure nitrogen gas through a face mask to cause oxygen deprivation, corrections officials said.
The method marked the first time that a new execution method has been used in the United States since lethal injection was introduced in 1982. The execution was completed without any problems.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a stay of execution for Alabama death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith who is scheduled to be put to death with nitrogen gas on Thursday.
The method has never been used in the United States, yet anti-death penalty activists claim it is controversial. During his appeal, Smith, 58, said his sentence should not be carried out over the potential for the state to botch the procedure, Fox News Digital reported.
“The application for stay of execution of sentenced of death presented to Justice (Clarence) Thomas and by him referred to the Court is denied,” the denial from the high court states. No other justices publicly dissented.
Smith was one of two men convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire homicide of Elizabeth Sennett in Colbert County, Alabama.
“Elizabeth Sennett’s family has waited an unconscionable 35 years to see justice served,” Alabama State Attorney General Steve Marshall said in November when the Alabama Supreme Court cleared the way for Smith to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia. “Though the wait has been far too long, I am grateful that our capital litigators have nearly gotten this case to the finish line.”
Smith was one of two men who were each paid $1,000 to kill Sennett on behalf of her husband, who was deeply in debt and hoped to collect insurance money, prosecutors said.
The murder as well as the revelations over who initiated it rocked the small Alabama community. Sennett’s husband took his own life a week later. The second suspect convicted in the slaying was executed in 2010.
In 2022, the Alabama Department of Corrections postponed Smith’s execution when personnel responsible for connecting two intravenous lines to his body for lethal injection were unable to do so.
Nitrogen hypoxia is caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, which deprives them of oxygen and kills them. The air inhaled by people includes 78% nitrogen but is harmless when inhaled with oxygen, Law Officer reported.
Alabama authorized nitrogen hypoxia in 2018 during a shortage of drugs used to carry out lethal injections, but the state has not used the method to carry out a death sentence. Oklahoma and Mississippi also authorized nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method but have not used it.
Proponents of the new execution method have claimed it would be painless, but opponents have argued that it is a form of human experimentation.
