Alabama will be allowed to execute the nation’s first inmate by nitrogen gas after a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday — just a day before convicted killers were set to die by the new method.
The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals rejected convicted murderer Kenneth Eugene Smith’s request for a preliminary injunction to stop his scheduled January 25 execution under a new method, in which he would be delivered only nitrogen and would die from a lack of oxygen.
The justices said in a 3-2 decision there was “no doubt that death by nitrogen hypoxia is new and novel” but Smith had failed to prove his argument that the experimental method violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
“Because we are bound by Supreme Court precedent, Smith cannot say that the use of nitrogen hypoxia, as a new and novel method, would amount to cruel and unusual punishment that violates the Eighth Amendment by itself,” the majority wrote in its opinion. .
Circuit Judge Jill A. Pryor disagreed with the ruling, saying there was “real doubt” about the protocol and what Smith would experience.
“He will die. The cost, I fear, is Mr. Smith’s human dignity, and ours,” Pryor wrote in the dissent.
Kenneth Eugene Smith is scheduled to become the first inmate in the country to be executed by nitrogen gas. Alabama Department of Corrections/AFP via Getty Images
The federal decision is the second this month to reject Smith’s attempt to halt the death penalty, where his lawyers argued that the state was trying to make the convicted killer a “test subject” for an untried execution method after he survived a previous state trial. to kill him by lethal injection.
Smith’s lawyers are expected to appeal to the US Supreme Court in a last-ditch effort to stop the execution scheduled for Thursday.
The legal team had already tried to seek a stay at the top court, but the Supreme Court rejected its argument on Wednesday that it was unconstitutional for the state to attempt a second execution after he survived the first sentence.
“Two courts have now rejected Smith’s claims,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said following the court’s decision. “I remain confident that the Supreme Court will side with justice, and Smith’s death sentence will be carried out tomorrow.”
The Alabama Department of Corrections tried to give Smith a lethal injection in 2022 but called it off when officials failed to connect the two veins needed to proceed. Smith told The Guardian this week that the experience left him with a range of mental disabilities, including post-traumatic stress disorder.
Since the failed attempt, the drug used in lethal injection has become rare, leading Alabama to allow nitrogen hypoxia as a method of execution.
Smith and another man killed Elizabeth Sennett in a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by her preacher husband. Find a grave
It involves placing a respirator-type face mask over the nose and mouth to replace breathable air with nitrogen. The government predicted that Smith would lose consciousness within seconds and die within minutes, but critics considered the method too experimental to understand the true impact.
Barring last-minute intervention, Smith’s nitrogen gas execution would mark the first time the new method has been used since lethal injection was introduced in 1982.
“This is the first time this will be attempted. There is no data on what will happen and how this will happen,” Smith’s lawyer Robert Grass argued in court.
Implementation of nitrogen gas will involve placing a respirator-type face mask over the nose and mouth to replace breathable air with nitrogen. AlienCat – stock.adobe.com
Smith, now 58, was one of two men convicted of the murder-for-hire of a preacher’s wife in 1988. They were each paid $1,000 to kill Elizabeth Sennett on behalf of her husband, who was in debt and wanted to collect insurance.
By Postal Wire
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
