US Supreme Court allows execution with nitrogen to go ahead
Jan 26, 2024
Washington [US], January 26: The US Supreme Court on Wednesday did not move to stop the planned execution, using nitrogen, of a criminal in the state of Alabama.
Kenneth Eugene Smith failed before both the US Supreme Court and 11th US
Circuit Court of Appeals in his attempt to stop the execution. He was sentenced to death
for a contract killing in 1988.
The 58-year-old was scheduled to die on Thursday evening using so-called nitrogen hypoxia.
In this type of execution, Smith will inhale nitrogen through a face mask and die for lack of oxygen.
No death sentence has ever been carried out in this way in the US before.
Smith's lawyers had argued that the condemned man would become a guinea pig for a new method of execution.
However, the Court of Appeals rejected these reservations, saying Smith could not prove that the use of nitrogen hypoxia as a new and novel method constituted "cruel and unusual" punishment, the judgement stated.
Shortly before, the Supreme Court had also denied a similar application, but did not give any reasons for this.
Human rights experts from the United Nations and Amnesty International warned of a potentially cruel death, saying there is no scientific evidence that the inhalation of pure nitrogen does not cause serious suffering.
Smith was due to be executed with a lethal injection in 2022. However, prison staff were unable to insert an IV into his vein. After several hours of lying strapped to the execution table, he was taken back to his cell.
Source: Qatar Tribune
