This is the first time this method has been used in the USA. UN is “seriously concerned”
The state of Alabama, in the south of the United States, executed inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith with nitrogen gas on Thursday, a method used for the first time in the country and the target of international criticism. The prisoner had already survived an execution attempt in November 2022, by lethal injection. At the high, according to ReutersAlabama officials were forced to abort the execution after struggling for hours to insert the needle into Smith’s body to give the lethal injection.
Smith was sentenced to death for murdering a woman on contract in 1988, he was declared dead at 8:25 pm (2:25 am today in Lisbon) after inhaling nitrogen gas through a mask and running out of oxygen.
The United States Supreme Court authorized the execution with nitrogen gas on Wednesday, amid international criticism that US authorities intervened in time.
Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, fought a legal battle to stop the execution using this never-before-tested method, claiming he was being treated like a guinea pig. However, the Supreme Court refused to uphold Smith’s arguments. Before the nitrogen was turned on, Smith made a final statement: “Tonight, Alabama took humanity a step back.”
According to Reuters, the execution began at 1:53 a.m. and Smith was pronounced dead at 2:25 a.m. after trying to hold his breath “as long as he could,” according to Alabama prison commissioner John Hamm.
“It looked like Smith was holding his breath as long as he could. He struggled a little against his restraints, but it’s an involuntary movement and an agonized breath. So it was all to be expected.”
Reverend Jeff Hood, Smith’s spiritual advisor, says that prison officials in the room “were visibly surprised by the gravity of the situation.”
“What we saw were minutes of someone fighting for their life. We saw minutes of someone struggling back and forth. We saw spit. We saw all kinds of things from their mouth spreading onto the mask. We saw the mask strapped to the gurney, and him throwing his head forward over and over again,” Hood, who attended his fifth execution in the last 15 months, told reporters. “
Organizations concerned about using the new method
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ravina Shamdasani, stated that she was “seriously concerned” about the use of this new method and called on the state of Alabama to suspend the execution and refrain “from carrying out any more executions of this type”. United Nations torture experts and Smith’s lawyers also tried to prevent the execution, saying the method was risky, experimental and could lead to an agonizing death or non-fatal injuries.
The non-governmental human rights organization Amnesty International warned that “this new, untested method could be extremely painful” for the prisoner, “in violation of international human rights treaties that the United States has ratified.”
The state of Alabama, which has been working for years on a protocol to apply the death penalty using this new nitrogen asphyxiation technique, argued in court that it is the “most painless and humane method of execution known.”
Convicts are fitted with a mask that replaces oxygen with nitrogen gas, which, in theory, will cause death within a few minutes.
But this argument did not convince Smith’s defense, who, after a federal judge gave the green light to the execution last week, filed appeals.
Alabama is the first state to develop an alternative to lethal injections – the most common method in recent decades – given the difficulty in acquiring the drugs in recent years, due to pharmaceutical companies’ refusal to use them for this purpose.
Alabama attempted to execute Smith in November 2022, but was unable to insert the intravenous injections. Under a subsequent plea agreement, Alabama pledged never again to attempt to kill Smith by lethal injection.
The defense argued that Smith’s right not to be subjected to cruel punishment, enshrined in the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, was violated.