The Alabama Supreme Court has authorized state officials to proceed with the first execution of an inmate in the US using suffocation by nitrogen gas.
In August, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, asked the court to allow the government to continue extorting Kenneth Smith, who was convicted of murder in 1996, using a face mask connected to a nitrogen cylinder meant to deprive him of oxygen. .
Smith, 58, is one of two people still alive in the US who survived an attempted execution after Alabama failed to carry out a previously scheduled execution by lethal injection in November when several attempts to insert an intravenous line into a vein failed.
Smith’s lawyers said the untested gas protocol may violate the US Constitution’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishment,” and argued a second attempt to implement it by any method would be unconstitutional.
They also told the court that Smith had not yet exhausted his appeal.
Kenneth Smith, 58, is one of two people still alive in the US who survived an attempted death penalty. e Alabama Department of Corrections
In a brief order issued Wednesday, the court, whose judges are all Republicans, said Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, must set a date for the state Department of Corrections to execute Smith.
Two judges disagreed with the order and one recused himself.
A spokeswoman for Ivey said his office has not yet set a date.
A spokesman for the Department of Corrections said the department “stands ready to carry out the court’s order.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
