hThe vein in the arm of Smith, who was tried to be executed by chemical injection many times in 2022 in the US state of Alabama, could not be found. According to Smith’s lawyer, despite numerous attempts and wounds on his arm, the vein could not be found. By late hour, the state’s death warrant had expired. Now, Alabama will try to kill him once again.
“INHUMANE, DEGRADING”
This time, the state will force Smith to wear an airtight mask and inhale pure nitrogen. This inactive gas will deplete the oxygen in your body.
The United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights said last week that a previously unused method of execution could amount to torture or another cruel, inhumane, degrading practice. He called for a stay of execution.
The final decision still stands, as the Federal Court rejected his lawyer’s request to stay the execution. Smith will be executed on Thursday.
Smith was one of two men who stabbed and assaulted a preacher’s wife, Elizabeth Sennett, to death in 1989 for $1,000.
He will be the only person in modern America to be executed twice and the first to face the application of nitrogen gas.
“MY BODY IS COLLAPSING, I’M CONTINUOUSLY LOSING WEIGHT”
In the state of Alabama, face-to-face meetings between death row inmates and journalists are prohibited. We reached him by phone last week, but he did not want to continue the interview because he was not feeling well.
“I’m miserable all the time. I have panic attacks regularly. These are just a small part of what I try to cope with during the day. It’s torture in its purest form,” Smith writes.
to Alabama “before it’s too late” [idamı] calls for “stop”.
The state says a nitrogen gas execution would cause him to lose consciousness quickly but would leave no evidence.
Medical experts and opponents of this method warn of possible disasters, from a severe convulsion that would affect the nervous system, to survival in a vegetative state, or even the possibility of the mask leaking and killing others in the room.
“I’m sure that Kenny is not afraid of death, he made it very clear. But he is afraid of experiencing greater torture in the process,” spiritual advisor Dr. told the BBC. Jeff Hood.
Hood signed a legal waiver explaining the dangers of nitrogen leakage.
“I will be a few feet away from him, and I have been warned many times by medical experts that I am endangering my life by doing this. If there is a leak in the hose, in the mask, nitrogen could definitely leak into the room.”
This is an unacceptable level of danger, says an expert who co-authored the study sent to the UN.
Dr., professor of anesthesiology at Emory University School of Medicine. Joel Zivot accuses Alabama authorities of having a “horrible” record of “brutal” executions:
“I have to conclude that Kenneth Smith is the worst person in America because Alabama is so determined to kill him that they are willing to kill other people to kill him.
“In an early study of nitrogen gas in healthy volunteers, almost everyone had a seizure during about 15 to 20 seconds of inhalation.”
In this scenario, Smith would lose consciousness before starting to experience violent spasms.
Alabama is one of the states with the most death sentences in the United States. Currently 165 people are on death row.
Since 2018, there have been three failed lethal injection attempts in the state in which convicted inmates survived.
It is stated that their lawyers are trying to save their clients’ lives on the grounds that the time limit has expired.
This created “unnecessary deadline pressure” for enforcers, the review said.
This time, a longer “hour window” will be given to execute Smith, not until midnight.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, who has the authority to halt legal executions, refused to comment on experts’ warnings and accusations against the state. The attorney general’s office called the UN’s concerns “unfounded, like Smith’s.”
In the statement, it was written that the court listened to Smith’s concerns and the opinions of different medical experts and decided that Smith’s concerns about nitrogen hypoxia were “speculative” and “theoretical.”
Republican state attorney Reed Ingram, who voted for execution by nitrogen gas, defied the U.N.’s criticism.
“I think this process is better than what he did to his victim,” he told the BBC.
“Our governor is a Christian. He discussed all this and thinks it’s in moderation. I’m sure it upsets him a lot, but it’s the law.”
BBC reached out to Elizabeth Sennett’s family. The family said they did not want to comment before Thursday.
In 1996, a jury recommended a life sentence without parole for Smith. However, the judge did not comply and gave the death penalty.
During the trial, Smith said he was present when the victim was killed but took no part in the attack.
