Earlier this week, the Alabama Department of Corrections released additional details about its plan to become the first state to use nitrogen hypoxia in state killings.
The Alabama Supreme Court ruled in October that the state attorney general could proceed with his plan to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith with nitrogen gas in a 6-2 decision by the all-Republican court.
In their post in Substack, Lauren Gill and Dan Moritz-Rabson report that apart from explaining that the untested protocol will involve placing a mask on the person the state is killing until now, in response to a lawsuit filed in November by Smith’s lawyers challenging the constitutionality of the plan. That lawsuit noted that the protocol “does not include information about the fit of the mask, how it will vent carbon dioxide, and the purity of the gas, all components that could lead to problems with the execution,” Gill and Moritz-Rabson report.
In her response released this week, ADOC’s regional director, Cynthia Stewart, wrote that the mask “features a five-point strapping system that guarantees a secure fit,” according to the Substack article. Stewart also responded to Smith’s lawyers’ fears that Smith would feel as if he were suffocating, writing that she and “multiple” others had worn the mask and had no problems breathing. The problem with that argument, note Gill and Mortiz-Rabson, is “mask wearers were breathing air, not nitrogen for these tests, a crucial distinction.”
No other state has ever attempted to kill a person using nitrogen gas, although Oklahoma and Mississippi have also included the method in their execution protocols.
Smith, who is one of two men convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of Elizabeth Sennett, has already been subjected to one botched execution. Corrections officials ended their attempt to kill Smith in November of last year after trying and failing for over an hour to find a usable vein for its lethal drugs. His was the third execution in 2022 that was botched and the fourth since 2018. All were related to the execution team’s inability to insert IV lines.