Witnesses watched through a window at an Alabama prison as Kenneth Eugene Smith became the nation's first person to be put to death using nitrogen gas.

ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — As witnesses including five news reporters watched through a window, Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was convicted and sentenced to die in the 1988 murder-for hire slaying of Elizabeth Sennett, convulsed on a gurney as Alabama carried out the nation’s first execution using nitrogen gas.

  • valaramech
    -1•10 months ago

    Considering both include convulsions and cardiac arrest can be accompanied by agonal breathing, I don’t think you can definitively state this.

    Smith also resisted breathing for as long as he could at the beginning of the procedure and I think that needs to be taken into account. I won’t say they absolutely didn’t botch his execution, but I’ve yet to see any compelling evidence to that effect.

    • bane_killgrind
      4•10 months ago

      Smith’s lawyers disagree, and seek a court-ordered halt to the second execution attempt, scheduled for 6 p.m. on Thursday. They say the new method, particularly the repurposing of a respirator mask, could easily go wrong if the mask’s seal is imperfect and oxygen seeps in.

      Nitrogen has been advocated for by the right-to-die movement, and used successfully in assisted suicides but is more commonly deployed using a nitrogen-filled hood over the head.

      Smith’s lawyers have also complained about Alabama’s decision to not perform the test outlined in the mask manufacturer’s manual to ensure an airtight seal.

      Unless they published their methodology, which they refused to do, we won’t have any compelling evidence.