Despite defense attorneys' best attempts to block the lawsuit, an Alabama judge has ruled that Kenneth Eugene Smith will become the first person to be put to death by nitrogen hypoxia later this month. handed down the verdict.
Smith, now 58, will be sentenced to death in 2022 for the contract murder of a preacher's wife in 1988, and he and co-defendant John Forrest Parker stabbed her eight times for $1,000 each. did.
In November 2022, Smith was about to be executed by lethal injection, but he managed to survive because his executioner botched the procedure. His lawyers say in legal filings that returning him to the state's death chamber poses double jeopardy and testing new execution methods on inmates violates his constitutional rights. He insisted that it would happen.
However, U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker denied a request for a preliminary injunction against the scheduled execution on January 25th. He acknowledged that the technique is new, but noted that the process of lethal injection was also new at one time.
The killer who murdered a minister's wife complains that he has become the new guinea pig for the execution after failing the lethal injection.
This undated photo provided by the Alabama Department of Corrections shows inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was convicted of murder-for-hire in the 1988 murder of a preacher's wife. In a complaint filed Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023, attorneys for the Rev. Jeff Hood, a spiritual advisor to an Alabama inmate scheduled to be executed with nitrogen gas, allege that the advisor was unable to meet the inmate in the death chamber. It is “hostile to religion”, saying there are restrictions on how close you can get. (Alabama Department of Corrections, via AP, File)
Mr. Smith's lawyers adequately communicated the theoretical risks of the process in their filings, and those risks do not constitute a constitutional violation, Mr. Smith wrote.
“Smith is not guaranteed a painless death,” Huffaker wrote on page 48 of Wednesday's ruling. “On this record, Smith has not shown, and the court cannot conclude, that the Protocol imposes cruel and unusual punishment and is constitutionally ineffective under the current legal framework.”
The judge also wrote that there was not sufficient evidence that death from nitrogen hypoxia was “substantially likely to cause Mr. Smith additional suffering immediately preceding or prolonging death.”
The method of execution, detailed in a 41-page protocol heavily redacted by the Alabama Department of Corrections, calls for a respirator-like mask to be placed over Smith's nose and mouth. Breathable air is gradually replaced by nitrogen gas, and inmates die from lack of oxygen, but theoretically without the pain of being unable to breathe.
Court approves Alabama to become first state to execute inmates with nitrogen gas
On September 17, 2022, the executioners were unable to find a vein to properly administer the deadly cocktail to Smith. After four hours strapped to a stretcher and repeatedly prodded with needles, Smith was released shivering and returned to his cell. (Photo by Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle, Getty Images)
Mr. Smith's lawyers also argued that Mr. Smith may not be able to pray or say his last words with the mask attached to his face, and that the process poses a risk of colorless and odorless nitrogen. He also expressed concern that his spiritual advisor may be banned from entering the room. It oozes through his mask.
But the state said in a court filing that Smith's counselor, the Rev. Jeff Hood, entered the death chamber at Alabama's Holman Correctional Facility and prayed for Smith before the procedure began. I wrote that it can be anointed with oil.
“Horror is an understatement,” Hood told The Associated Press about Huffaker's sentence. “Alabama now has permission from a federal court to suffocate its citizens.”
In one of Smith's earlier appeals, Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas argued in their dissent that hypoxia had never been used, according to court filings. It said it should not be considered a viable alternative to lethal injection because it cannot be humanely tested.
However, due to repeated “failed” executions in Alabama (since 2018, it has been admitted that there were problems with IV insertion in at least four executions, three of which were canceled and not re-executed). At least eight death row inmates in the state have filed special petitions for their executions. This is due to a new method approved in 2018.
Alabama prisoner scheduled to be executed with nitrogen gas in January 2024, the first time a new method will be used
Pictured are eight Alabama death row inmates who pleaded guilty to death from nitrogen hypoxia in 2018: Carrie Dale Grayson, Demetrius Frazier, David Lee Roberts, Robin Dion Myers, and Gregory Hunt. , Jeffrey Todd West, Charles Lee Burton, and David Wilson. (Mugshot: Alabama Department of Corrections | Background: Photo by Giles Clarke/Getty Images)
Initially, Smith was one of those inmates, but lawyers for death row inmates have changed their stance after Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Q. Ham confirmed that Smith would be the first to die under the new method. changed.
“Both before and after the first attempt failed, Smith has maintained that any executions be carried out by nitrogen hypoxia,” Smith's attorneys wrote in their latest filing Wednesday. “After the first attempt failed, the state honored Smith's request…Now, and understandably, Smith also opposes that approach, at least under Alabama's current protocols.”
As an alternative, his attorney proposed an amendment to the state's existing protocol for this method, or the Utah Firing Squad Execution Protocol.
Smith is not guaranteed a painless death.
Deborah Denno, a death penalty expert at Fordham Law School, described opponents' objections to the state's existing written guidelines for nitrogen hypoxia laws, calling them “vagrant laws.”[est] protocol [she’d] I've seen it till now. ”
“You'd want everything to be clear about exactly what's going to happen. His lawyers can't do anything to help,” she said Monday. “When you get into the execution itself, the content gets very edited. They mention all these cylinders, but they have no idea what it says. … How do you get there? How does it get there? How is it transported? How is it transported? Is it in a cylinder? Is someone coming in and filling the cylinder? This is true for all methods of execution. Important information you need to know. ”
“We have more information about states that electrocute people,” she explained in context. “For example, we can see details about what kind of sponges they're using. What's going to be done with their hands? Nitrogen doesn't tell us that. That inmates can't take off their masks. How can we know?”
Earlier this month, the United Nations Human Rights Council urged the state of Alabama to block Smith's scheduled execution under a new method.
But Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said Wednesday's ruling brings the state closer to “holding convicted convicted murderer Kenneth Smith accountable.”
“Mr. Smith has avoided a legitimate death sentence for more than 35 years, but today's court's rejection of Mr. Smith's speculative claims creates an obstacle to justice finally being served,” he said in a statement. has been removed.”
Smith and Parker were executed in 2010, killing Elizabeth Doreen Sennett on her husband's behalf. According to the Clark County Attorney's Office, Preacher was deeply in debt and wanted to collect insurance money.
A woman was stabbed and beaten in a murder made to look like a botched home invasion, according to Alabama.com.
According to court documents, Sennett committed suicide a week after his wife's death.
Marshall's office previously claimed that nitrogen hypoxia causes “loss of consciousness within seconds” and “death within minutes,” according to the Associated Press. In court filings, the process has been compared to the instant death of industrial workers who are exposed to gas and quickly lose consciousness.
This phenomenon has also been observed in aviation, where pilots can be knocked out or killed at altitudes above 10,000 feet. Federal Aviation Administration.
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However, Smith's lawyers note in court filings that the American Veterinary Medical Association's 2020 euthanasia guidelines only approve death by nitrogen hypoxia and not for other animals. It pointed out. That's because the process can create “anoxic conditions that are dire for some species.”
If Smith's execution using gas failed, the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Alabama could no longer attempt to execute Smith. The question of whether the case ultimately moves forward could be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.
