White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre expressed concerns about the death penalty on Friday, saying the Biden administration was “deeply troubled” by the experimental execution of a man using nitrogen gas in Alabama.
Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, was executed Thursday night by inhaling pure nitrogen gas through a face mask. This method of death was first used in the United States and is a controversial method of capital punishment that causes oxygen deprivation. The method of execution has been criticized as inhumane and a form of torture, and the move comes after the Supreme Court rejected a last-minute appeal to halt the execution in the case.
“The reports about Kenneth Smith and his death last night are obviously very concerning,” Jean-Pierre told reporters at a press conference. “This is very concerning to our administration, and it's extremely concerning to us here in the White House.”
This is the first time a new method of execution has been used in the United States since lethal injection, the most common form of capital punishment today, was introduced in 1982.
Alabama death row inmate executed with nitrogen gas, first new method in 42 years
Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, became the first inmate to be put to death due to nitrogen hypoxia. (Alabama Department of Corrections, Associated Press)
The execution lasted about 22 minutes, and Smith appeared to remain conscious for several minutes. For at least two minutes, he trembled and writhed on his gurney, sometimes being pulled into restraints, and then appeared to continue breathing heavily for several minutes until his breathing became imperceptible.
“The President has long expressed deep and profound concerns and concerns about how the death penalty is carried out and whether it is consistent with our values,” she continued. “So we are very troubled by the death of Kenneth Smith. So, you know, it's just alarming to hear that.”
Smith was sentenced to death for the 1988 murder of a preacher's wife, Elizabeth Sennett, who was found dead in the Colbert County home she shared with her husband. Prosecutors said Smith was one of two men paid $1,000 each to kill Sennett on behalf of her husband, who was deeply in debt and trying to collect insurance money. He said that.
Her husband, Charles Sennett Sr., committed suicide just as they began investigating him as a suspect. Another man convicted of this murder was executed in 2010.
Alabama tried to execute Smith by lethal injection in 2022, but problems with inserting an IV into his vein prevented it, making it the second time in two months since 2018 that the state had failed to execute an inmate. It was the third time.
Alabama death row inmate for nitrogen hypoxia loses final appeal
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday that the White House is “deeply troubled” by the nitrogen gas execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
Republican Gov. Kay Ivey announced a moratorium on executions a day after Smith's botched execution, pending an internal review of lethal injection procedures. Alabama resumed lethal injection last summer.
Smith filed a last-minute appeal Thursday to the Supreme Court seeking a stay on his execution, arguing that the death penalty should not be carried out because of the possibility that the state would botch the process after the first failed execution. . The court rejected the appeal, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion that Alabama was using Smith as a “guinea pig” to test new methods of execution.
The United Nations and the European Union condemned Smith's experimental execution.
“He was writhing and clearly in pain,” Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the U.N. human rights office, told a U.N. briefing. “Instead of looking for novel, untested ways to execute people, let's abolish the death penalty. This is an anachronism that has no place in the 21st century.”
The United Nations Human Rights Office has previously warned that it believes the death penalty method “may violate the prohibition against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Breathing pure nitrogen gas through a mask, a controversial death penalty method first used in the United States, has been criticized as inhumane. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The European Union said in a statement on Friday that nitrogen hypoxia is a “particularly cruel and unusual punishment” and called on countries to “move towards its abolition in line with global trends”.
In 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland imposed a moratorium on the federal death penalty, which President Biden supports.
”[Smith’s execution] “This underscores why the President supports the Attorney General's suspension of the federal death penalty, pending a review of the policies and procedures governing the use of the death penalty,” Jean-Pierre said Friday. Ta.
But despite the moratorium, federal prosecutors announced earlier this month that they would seek the death penalty for the gunman who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store in May 2022.
“The president has always had deep concerns about how the death penalty is carried out,” Jean-Pierre said. “He always is.”
