MONTGOMERY, Alabama – Kenneth Smith, a death row prisoner in Alabama, is set to become the first inmate in America to be executed with nitrogen gas after the US Supreme Court declined to halt his execution. Smith was convicted of the 1988 killing of Elizabeth Sennett, who was stabbed repeatedly and beaten with a blunt object. The murder scheme was orchestrated by her husband Charles, a Christian minister who had taken out a large life insurance policy on his wife. Charles Sennett later took his own life.
Smith’s legal bid to have the method declared unconstitutional failed, and he is set to be executed on Thursday using the nitrogen gas protocol. The Supreme Court justices denied Smith’s request to stay his execution and declined to hear his legal challenge, contending that a second execution attempt by Alabama would violate the US Constitution’s 8th Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
The proposed nitrogen gas protocol, also known as nitrogen hypoxia, is designed to deprive prisoners of oxygen by placing a mask connected to a cylinder of nitrogen over their face. A state attorney defended the method as “the most painless and humane method of execution known to man.”
Smith’s lawyers have urged the US Supreme Court to intervene, arguing that Alabama’s nitrogen gas protocol is “recently released and untested” and “a novel method of execution that has never been attempted by any state or the federal government.” This appeal adds another layer of complexity to the ongoing debate around the ethical and practical considerations of the death penalty.