Smith rarely speaks with reporters about surviving a lethal injection execution in 2022. But he talked with NPR about Alabama's plans to try again, this time with a new method: nitrogen gas.

Alabama has already tried once to execute Kenneth Smith. On the evening of Nov. 17, 2022, Smith lay on a gurney as workers tried for an hour to insert needles into the veins of his hand, arms and collarbone so they could put him to death by lethal injection. Just before midnight, the execution was called off.

Surviving an execution is uncommon. Only one other prisoner alive today has done it — a death row prisoner from Alabama whom the state also failed to execute by lethal injection. But Smith’s case is even more unusual. When the state again tries to execute him, on Jan. 25, Alabama plans to use nitrogen gas. It will be the first time the gas has been used as an execution method in the U.S.

The method has come under scrutiny for safety and human rights reasons. NPR exclusively published a document that showed the Alabama Department of Corrections had required Smith’s spiritual adviser, the Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood, to sign a waiver acknowledging that the state believes he could be at risk of exposure to the gas. In January, the United Nations published a statement that declared U.N. experts were concerned the method could lead to grave suffering.

  • Nate CoxEnglish
    6•10 months ago

    There is a fantastic podcast about public executions that I listened to years ago, which detailed how the public loved public executions no matter how violent or gruesome.

    People would come from miles around, they would rent balconies above the execution site to get the best view and have parties while they watched someone suffer and die. Part of the reason public executions lasted as long as they did was governments being reluctant to take them away from the public.

    I’m not sure that keeping it palatable is super important to the process. The real argument against execution is that we know for a fact that sometimes innocent people get convicted; to be ok with executing criminals you must be ok with the occasional innocent being killed, and I would argue that even a single innocent being killed by the state is too much to accept.