Alabama will execute a death row inmate this Thursday by nitrogen inhalation, a new and controversial method.
The US state of Alabama is preparing to execute a convicted man by nitrogen inhalation on Thursday, a world first condemned by the UN which likened the execution method to a form of “torture”.
Kenneth Eugene Smith was sentenced to death definitively in 1996 for the murder of a woman ordered by her husband, it would be the first of the year in the United States, where 24 murders were committed in 2023, all fatal. injection
Kay Ivey, the Republican governor of the state in the country’s southeast, has set Thursday, 06:00 GMT (7 a.m. in Paris) as the start of a 36-hour period during which enforcement can take place.
UN ‘concerned’
An earlier attempt to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith by lethal injection, on November 17, 2022, was aborted at the last minute, due to not being able to place an intravenous infusion within the legally allotted time to inject him with the lethal solution, “being tied up for several hours.” came,” according to their lawyers.
Alabama is one of three US states that authorizes the death penalty by nitrogen inhalation, in which death is caused by hypoxia (depletion of oxygen). The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said it was “concerned” that the planned execution on January 16 “using a new and tested method, nitrogen hypoxia”.
This “could constitute torture or other cruel or degrading treatment under international law,” High Commission spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani warned, calling for a moratorium on the executions.
Execution without sedation
Alabama’s nitrogen hypoxia execution protocol does not include sedation, although the American Veterinary Association (AVMA) recommends sedation of even larger animals when euthanized. Thus, the spokesperson asserted.
Kenneth Eugene Smith, whose appeal was denied in Alabama, petitioned the United States Supreme Court, arguing that this new execution would violate his constitutional rights, and requesting a stay. But the country’s Supreme Court, with a conservative majority, rejected the request on Wednesday.
In its written arguments to the Supreme Court opposing it, the state of Alabama presented nitrogen hypoxia as “perhaps the most humane method of execution ever invented”.
A murder ordered by a priest
Kenneth Eugene Smith was convicted of the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, 45, who was ordered by her husband, Charles Sennett, a heavily indebted and unfaithful priest, to pose as a burglar.
Despite the husband’s suicide, the police tracked down both the killers. Kenneth Eugene Smith’s accomplice, John Forrest Parker, was sentenced to death, and was executed in 2010.
Kenneth Smith was also sentenced to death the first time but the trial was overturned on appeal. During his second trial in 1996, jurors were divided on the sentence: 11 out of 12 recommended life imprisonment.
But in his case, like his colleague’s, the judge ignored the jury’s opinion and sentenced him to death, which existed in some states at the time but has now been abolished nationwide. American.
In its annual report published in December, the specialized Observatory Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) underlined that the majority of prisoners executed in the United States in 2023 “probably will not be sentenced to death today”, due to this consideration. Legal changes to specifically address mental health issues and the trauma of defendants or the imposition of the death penalty.
23 American states have abolished the death penalty, while six others observe a moratorium on its application by governor’s decision.
