It was the first capital execution using nitrogen in the United States and the world. It took place this Thursday, January 25 in a penitentiary in Alabama, in the south of the United States and it is the first time in forty years that a new method of execution has been used in the country.
3 mins
Twenty-nine minutes is how long Kenneth Eugene Smith was killed. Strapped to a stretcher, he received the deadly gas via a respiratory mask that covered his face. According to journalists who witnessed the execution, the 58-year-old man appeared conscious for the first two minutes. For another two minutes he began to pull on the restraints holding him before heavy breathing was heard, then nothing. Kenneth Smith died at Atmore Penitentiary at 8:25 p.m. (2:25 a.m. UT, Friday, January 26).
A decline of humanity
In a final statement, Kenneth Eugene Smith said that by executing him like this, Alabama was setting humanity back. For state authorities, who explain that nitrogen is used in certain cases of assisted suicide in Europe, it is a humane method. She was chosen after a first attempt at execution by lethal injection in 2022, an attempt aborted due to being unable to find a vein suitable for needles. Materials used in lethal injections are increasingly difficult to find, pushing states with the death penalty to seek alternative methods. Kenneth Smith’s lawyers, who denounce an experimental method, have exhausted all appeals in vain. Kenneth Smith, was convicted of the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, a 45-year-old woman. It was her husband Charles Sennett, a heavily indebted and unfaithful pastor, who ordered the murder and tried to make it look like a burglary gone wrong.
Despite the husband’s suicide, the police traced the two murderers. One of them, John Forrest Parker, was executed in 2010. Kenneth Eugene Smith was first sentenced to death, but the trial was overturned on appeal. During the second trial in 1996, 11 of the 12 jurors favored life in prison. But as for his accomplice, the judge, ignoring the opinion of the jurors, had sentenced him to the death penalty, a possibility now abolished then existing in some States.
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#USA: UN Human Rights Chief @volker_turk deeply regrets the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith in Alabama despite serious concerns this novel & untested method of suffocation by nitrogen gas may amount to torture, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. pic.twitter.com/NPfjXwyOmh
— UN Human Rights (@UNHumanRights) January 26, 2024
“ I deeply regret the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith in Alabama despite serious concerns that this unproven method of nitrogen suffocation could constitute torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment “, said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk. “ The death penalty is incompatible with the fundamental right to life (…) I call on all States to impose a moratorium on its use, as a step towards its universal abolition “.
The High Commission had called for this execution to be suspended, saying on January 16 “ alarm » by the use of this method and emphasizing that the Alabama execution protocol does not provide for sedation, while the American Veterinary Association (AVMA) recommends administering a sedative to animals euthanized in this way. The European Union also deplored this execution “ particularly cruel » and affirmed his opposition to the death penalty “ in all circumstances “. Acat, a human rights NGO which fights against torture and the death penalty, reacted strongly.
Yesterday, the State of#Alabama executed a man by asphyxiating him with nitrogen. He was called #KennethSmith.
The Supreme Court rejected his final appeal, based on the constitutional ban on torture.
We are outraged by this cruel act. A real torture.
— ACAT-France (@ACAT_France) January 26, 2024
(With AFP)
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