Conducted in Alabama planned execution On Thursday night, death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith was subjected to nitrogen hypoxia, a controversial and controversial method of execution that was first used in the United States. The execution took place at 8:25 p.m. local time at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, officials said.
Alabama Department of Corrections Director John Q. Ham said at a news briefing that the execution began at 7:53 p.m. and that Smith wore a nitrogen mask for about five minutes after he collapsed.
According to a pool press release, Smith's last words were, “Tonight, Alabama took humanity a step back. I will leave with love, peace and light. Thank you for supporting me. I love you all.”
He also made the 'I love you' sign in sign language, reporters reported.
A reporter also said Smith “appeared to be shaking and writhing on the stretcher for at least two minutes as the execution began” and asked Ham if that was “expected” or a sign of “distress.”
Hamm responded, “I think Smith was holding his breath as long as he could.” “And there is also information that he had some difficulty with his restraints, but there were involuntary movements and some breathing. These were all expected and in the side effects of nitrogen hypoxia that we have seen and studied.”
“There was a little problem with the EKG line, so the read was fine,” Hamm said, explaining the roughly 45-minute delay from when the Supreme Court allowed the execution to when witnesses were brought into the trial room.
“We are deeply saddened by the fact that the State of Alabama and the Alabama Department of Corrections have executed Kenneth Eugene Smith,” Smith's legal team wrote in a statement to CBS News after the execution.
“Kenny was sentenced to death because his trial judge applied a repealed Alabama statute to override the jury's 11-1 decision that his life should be spared, which is not only impossible under current Alabama law, but has been applied ever since. “It is an unacceptable practice. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional,” he said in a statement. “Efforts are currently underway in the Alabama Legislature to ensure that inmates like Kenny, who are on death row because a judge ignored a jury's well-considered decision to save his life, do not suffer the same fate today. Unfortunately, the effort has not been successful. If you do, it will be too late for Kenny.”
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey said in a separate statement that she had decided not to grant Smith a pardon.
“The execution was legally carried out by nitrogen hypoxia, a method previously requested by Mr. Smith as an alternative to lethal injection,” Ivey wrote. “Finally, Mr. Smith got what he asked for and this case could finally be closed.”
At a news briefing Thursday evening following Smith's execution, Mike Sennett, the son of Elizabeth Dolin Sennett, whom Smith was convicted of murder, also made a statement.
“It's a really bitter day. We're not going to run around,” Sennett said. “But I’m glad the day is over.”
“Kenneth Smith made some bad decisions 35 years ago, and tonight he paid his debt,” Sennett said, adding, “Let me close by saying that Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett got justice tonight.”
Smith and his spiritual advisors; Pastor Jeff Hood“The eyes of the world are watching the imminent moral apocalypse,” he said in a statement Thursday afternoon before the execution.
“We pray that people will not turn their heads. We cannot normalize suffocating each other,” the statement said.
Smith's execution came after he had already survived. wrong lethal injection Smith's legal team challenged Alabama's plan to use nitrogen in death chambers without documented evidence of its effects and urged the state to halt executions altogether. His attorneys accused the state of using Smith as a “test subject” for experimental runs, a motion that was ultimately rejected.
The Alabama Department of Corrections said in a press release after the execution that Smith had nine visitors on Thursday and received one phone call. His last meal was steak, hash browns, and eggs.
Nitrogen hypoxia is a process that aims to cause asphyxiation by having an individual inhale pure nitrogen or lethally high concentrations of nitrogen through a gas mask.
U.S. courts across multiple levels of government have denied stay requests. supreme court On Wednesday, it was ruled that Alabama has the constitutional right to carry out executions. The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the executions to proceed as planned, overriding public objections from three progressive lawmakers.
“Failed to kill Smith on the first attempt, the state of Alabama selected him as a ‘guinea pig’ to test a previously untried method of execution,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote.
In addition to legal issues, executions were carried out. Criticism from human rights experts – The UN’s top human rights official also said earlier this month that “killing prisoners with nitrogen gas may constitute torture under international treaties.”
What is Nitrogen Hypoxia?
Alabama is one of three U.S. states that technically allows nitrogen hypoxia as an alternative to lethal injection and other traditional methods of execution. Oklahoma and Mississippi are the only states to authorize execution by nitrogen hypoxia, a relatively new form of death. Before Thursday, no state had ever carried out an execution using this method.
Its application inside Alabama's execution chamber has been criticized as experimental and potentially unnecessarily painful and dangerous for death row inmates and others in the room. UN experts have cited concerns about the potential for severe suffering that execution by pure nitrogen inhalation could cause. They said there is no scientific evidence to prove otherwise.
The consequences of accidental inhalation of excessive nitrogen, typically in industrial environments, are well documented. Nitrogen, a colorless, odorless gas, is safe to inhale only when mixed with oxygen in appropriate concentrations. Otherwise breathing it is toxic. Veterinarians have refused to use nitrogen asphyxiation to euthanize animals because of the “painful” effects and potential risk to bystanders.
What did Kenneth Eugene Smith do?
Smith was accused of being an assassin and sentenced to death. his beliefs The 1989 murder of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, the wife of a pastor, in Colbert County, northwestern Alabama.
Prosecutors said that in 1988, Smith and John Forrest Parker were each paid $1,000 to carry out the killing on behalf of Elizabeth's husband, the Reverend Charles Sennett, pastor of the Westside Church of Christ in Sheffield.
The pastor had been unfaithful and was in significant debt before taking out a large life insurance policy on his wife, authorities said. Sennett attempted to raise money by killing his wife. According to court documents, Sennett committed suicide a week after his wife's murder, as the investigation progressed and authorities began considering him a suspect.
Prosecutors alleged that Rev. Sennett originally hired another man, Billy Williams, for the job, and that Williams in turn recruited Smith and Parker. All three were promised equal compensation, according to a 2021 ruling filed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in response to one of the legal challenges raised by Smith.
Smith and his accomplices Planned to kill Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett. At home, she and her husband tried to share the crime by making it look like a robbery. On March 18, 1988, Elizabeth was murdered. Smith took a video cassette recorder from the Sennett residence, which investigators later found in Smith's home and played a key role in the state's case against him.
Smith argued in a subsequent appeal that authorities did not have a lawful search warrant to enter the home where the cassettes were found. According to court records, Smith confessed to his role in Elizabeth's murder during an interview with police, which ultimately led to his conviction.
Smith was sentenced to death in his initial ruling and sentenced to death. This was overturned by the Alabama Court of Appeals, and he was again found guilty of capital murder in a second trial in the '90s. Nonetheless, the jury in that trial voted to recommend life in prison without parole instead of the death penalty. The judge overruled the jury's recommendation and again sentenced Smith to be executed by the state. His accomplice, Parker, was executed in June 2010 for his role in the murder, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections.
If Smith's trial had been held today, his execution on Thursday would have been impossible. In 2017, Alabama became the last U.S. state to strike down a law allowing judges to override jury recommendations on capital punishment.