Alabama can execute prisoner using nitrogen gas rules federal court - after ... trends now
Alabama will be allowed to put killer Kenneth Eugene Smith to death with nitrogen gas, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
The ruling refuses to block what would be the nation´s first execution by a new method since 1982.
Smith will be gassed to death with nitrogen hypoxia tomorrow at 6pm in Atmore, Alabama. It will be the first execution of its kind in the US and first known nitrogen execution in the world.
Earlier Wednesday, Smith had begged the Supreme court for mercy, citing experts concerns over the method despite previously requesting it. They denied that appeal.
Now, it appears they will likely hear and rule on whether Alabama can use the new method of execution before Smith is set to be put to death.
Alabama will be allowed to put killer Kenneth Eugene Smith to death with nitrogen gas, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday
Kenneth Smith is set to be executed with nitrogen gas on Thursday, which the UN has branded 'torture' and scientists have largely banned from animal experiments
Prosecutors said Smith and John Forrest Parker were each paid $1,000 to kill Elizabeth Sennett for husband Charles Sennett Sr., who was deeply in debt and wanted to collect on insurance
In 1988, Smith brutally stabbed Elizabeth Sennett in exchange for $1,000 in a murder-for-hire plot concocted by her preacher husband, Charles Sennett Sr.
He was in debt and worried that she would discover it, so hired Smith and one other man to carry out the killing.
Smith was due to be executed last year by lethal injection but nurses struggled to find a clear vein in time before the execution warrant expired.
A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Smith´s request for an injunction to stop his scheduled execution by nitrogen hypoxia Thursday.
Smith´s lawyers have argued that the state is trying to make him the test subject for an untried execution method and are expected to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The method involves putting a respirator-type face mask over the nose and mouth to replace breathable air with nitrogen, causing death from lack of oxygen.
The state predicted in court filings that the gas will cause an inmate to lose consciousness within seconds and cause death within minutes.
Critics of the untested method say the state can´t predict what will happen and what Smith will feel after the warden switches on the gas.
Some states are looking for new ways to execute death row inmates because the drugs used in lethal injections, the most common execution method in the United States, have become difficult to find.
Three states - Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma - have authorized nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method, but no state has attempted to use it so far.
The experimental method is so grim that the American Veterinary Medical Association ruled it was too 'distressing' to be used when euthanizing animals in 2000.
Dr. Philip Nitschke, an assisted suicide expert who uses the gas
