US Supreme Court does not stay execution of Kenneth Smith in Alabama, first to die by nitrogen gas

(CNN) –– The United States Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to stay the execution of death row convict Kenneth Smith in Alabama, scheduled for this week using nitrogen gas. It’s a brand-new method that some experts report is shrouded in secrecy amid concerns it could lead to extreme pain or even torture.

Smith will be executed over a 30-hour period starting Thursday for his role in a 1988 murder-for-hire. 14 months ago, the state had to cancel an attempt to execute him by lethal injection because officials could not administer it. IV. Before the expiry of the court order.

Before and after that episode, Smith expressed his desire to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia, a method that only Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississippi have allowed and none have used. In fact, only Alabama has outlined protocols in this regard.

Smith and his lawyers last week asked the Supreme Court to stay the proceedings so they could argue that a second execution of Smith would amount to cruel and unusual punishment, which violates the 8th and 14th Amendments.

The case, they told the high court, “raises important issues about the constitutionality of the State of Alabama’s second attempt to execute Mr. Smith.”

However, this Wednesday, the justices rejected Smith’s requests. They did not give any explanation in their brief order and no dissent was recorded.

During an attempt to execute him in November 2022, officers “struck Mr. Smith repeatedly in the arms and hands” in an attempt to access his veins, causing the inmate “severe physical pain and mental anguish, including post-traumatic stress disorder”. stress,” his lawyers wrote.

Smith’s execution will be only the second time in U.S. history that a state has attempted to execute an inmate a second time after initially failing, they said.

The state opposed Smith’s appeal, saying in a Supreme Court filing this week that it would use a different method this time and describing nitrogen hypoxia as “perhaps the most humane method of execution.”

“That treatment is far better than what Smith gave Elizabeth Sennett nearly 36 years ago,” the state of Alabama wrote, referring to the victim in the 1988 case.

However, United Nations experts have expressed “alarm” about Smith’s imminent execution, saying in a press release this month: “We are concerned that nitrogen hypoxia will result in a painful and humiliating death.” The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Alabama to halt the death penalty, saying it “may amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under international human rights law.”

“It’s not that nitrogen gas doesn’t kill you,” says Dr. Joel Zivot told CNN. “But will he kill you in a manner that meets the constitutional requirement that it not be cruelty or torture?”

Smith was sentenced to death in 1988 for the murder-for-hire role of the Senate. Her husband, minister Charles Sennett, hired two others, including Smith, to kill his wife and pose as a robber for $1,000 each. , according to court records.

Sennett, who revealed in court that he was having an affair and had taken out an insurance policy for his wife, killed himself a week after the murder as investigators focused on him. Smith was eventually arrested after investigators searched his home and found Sennett’s video recorder, which he took during the murder.