Alabama to carry out first-ever execution by nitrogen gas of inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith

Alabama is set to execute death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith with nitrogen gas, with him becoming the first person in the United States to be put to death using the untested method. The Supreme court this week refused to stop Alabama from executing Smith using the controversial method, known as nitrogen hypoxia. 

Smith’s lawyers had argued that it would be unconstitutional for the state to attempt the execution for the second time, after a failed lethal injection attempt back in 2022. However, the arguments were rejected by the justices. Smith, too, asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to block the execution, but that court has yet to issue its ruling. His execution is scheduled for Thursday, January 25.

Alabama is one of the three states, besides Oklahoma and Mississippi, to have authorised the use of nitrogen hypoxia. The inmate is fitted with a mask and is made to inhale nitrogen gas in the process. 

Smith is accused of the murder-for-hire-killing of Elizabeth Dorelene Sennett in Colbert County in 1988. According to court records, he said he was paid $1,000 by the victim’s husband, Colbert County minister Charles Sennett Sr. Sennett was stabbed eight times in the chest and once on each side of the neck, according to the county coroner. Charles Sennett died  by suicide before facing charges. 

According to the website of Death Penalty Information Center, “Nitrogen gas has never been tested in an execution setting but has caused serious injury and death in industrial accidents. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), fourteen people died of nitrogen asphyxiation in the workplace between 2012 and 2020. In 2021, a nitrogen leak at a poultry plant in Georgia killed six people and hospitalized eleven. Liquid nitrogen used as a refrigerant leaked into the air, where it vaporized into a fog that surrounded hundreds of employees.”