Kenneth Smith, 58, was set to be executed in November 2022.
But they found no suitable vein.
Now he will be killed with nitrogen – a method the UN warns against.
Kenneth Smith was sentenced to death in 1988 for the murder of a preacher’s wife, a murder he carried out for payment. He was originally supposed to be executed at a prison in Alabama, USA, in November 2022 by lethal injection.
But the execution was not carried out. After staff tried to find a suitable vein for the injection for over an hour, the execution was called off, reports CBS News.
The staff did not think they would have time to complete it before the deadline expired at midnight, wrote The Independent then.
And after Smith’s botched execution, his case is now back on the news. His death is now scheduled for January 25, 2024.
Criticized the method to be implemented
This time a new method will be tested. Execution by nitrogen in what is known as nitrogen gas asphyxiation or nitrogen hypoxia nitrogen hypoxia Nitrogen hypoxia was approved as a legal execution option in 2018 amid an ongoing shortage of lethal injection drugs. In August 2023, Alabama released its first execution protocol for nitrogen hypoxia, writes CBS News..
The execution is designed to suffocate the prisoner by forcing them to breathe pure nitrogen or toxic high concentrations through a gas mask.
This is untested. And critics have pointed out that a stream of nitrogen gas in the death chamber could threaten the health of other people in the room, writes CBS News.
And the method has been strongly criticized by OHCRUN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
“UN experts have today expressed concern over the impending execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith in the United States by nitrogen hypoxia – an unproven method of execution that could subject him to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or even torture,” reads a press release published on January 3.
The experts warn that experimental executions such as nitrogen hypoxia are likely to violate the ban on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.
Calls to stop the execution
Reverend Jeffrey Hood who is a spiritual advisor to death row inmates spoke CBS News in December that he filed a lawsuit challenging executions by nitrogen gas.
The rationale was that it prevented him from providing proper support to prisoners, such as Smith, by putting the preacher himself at risk. And barring the duties of a death-chamber spiritual adviser would run afoul of a Supreme Court ruling protecting those rights, he said.
Hood also said in the lawsuit that Alabama’s use of nitrogen hypoxia as a method of execution “poses potentially significant dangers to his own life and violates both himself and Mr. Smith’s religious liberties.”