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kenneth smith
Top US Nitrogen Gas Producers Ban Use in Executions
"Drug manufacturers don't want their medicines diverted and misused in torturous executions and the makers of nitrogen gas share the same objection: They do not want their products to be used to kill," said one campaigner.
Mar 11, 2024
Three of the leading U.S. manufacturers of medical-grade nitrogen gas said this week that they will not allow their products to be used in executions, a move that came after Louisiana approved the controversial capital punishment method recently used to kill an Alabama prisoner who appeared to be in agony before he died.
Airgas—owned by the French company Air Liquide—along with Air Products, and Matheson Gas toldThe Guardian that they are banning the use of their nitrogen gas products in the previously untested execution method used to cause death by hypoxia, or deprivation of oxygen to vital tissues.
Veterinarians consider nitrogen gas unethical for euthanizing animals and United Nations human rights experts have asserted that the execution technique may violate international anti-torture law.
"Airgas has not, and will not, supply nitrogen or other inert gases to induce hypoxia for the purpose of human execution," the company said.
Matheson Gas told The Guardian that use of its products in executions is "not consistent with our company values," while Air Products told the U.K.-based newspaper that it has established "prohibited end uses for our products, which includes the use of any of our industrial gas products for the intentional killing of any person (including nitrogen hypoxia)."
Four states—Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma—have approved nitrogen gas for use in executions. Last week, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, signed legislation passed by the GOP-controlled state Legislature expanding execution methods to include the electric chair and nitrogen hypoxia. This, despite the agonizing execution in January of 58-year-old Kenneth Smith, who was killed by the state of Alabama by nitrogen hypoxia on January 25 after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his last-ditch appeal.
Rev. Jeff Hood, a spiritual adviser to U.S. death row inmates, witnessed Smith's killing, which he described as "horrific and cruel." Hood and other witnesses said Smith convulsed violently for several minutes while he was strapped to a gurney and forced to breathe nitrogen gas through a mask. Even prison guards were taken by surprise as the gurney shook and Smith struggled for his life.
Alabama officials had claimed that nitrogen hypoxia is "perhaps the most humane method of execution ever devised."
States have sought alternative means of killing condemned prisoners—including nitrogen gas and firing squads—ever since the European Union banned the sale and export of lethal injection drugs in 2011.
Maya Foa, co-executive director of the anti-death penalty group Reprieve, told The Guardian that "drug manufacturers don't want their medicines diverted and misused in torturous executions and the makers of nitrogen gas share the same objection: They do not want their products to be used to kill."
"States which claim that the lethal injection or gas inhalation are 'humane' methods of execution are merely seeking to mask what it means for a state to forcibly put someone to death," Foa added. "The makers of these products see through the lie and naturally want nothing to do with it."
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With Green Light From Supreme Court, Alabama Executes Man With Nitrogen Gas
"We must work to abolish the death penalty and end this cruel and inhumane punishment," said Rep. Ayanna Pressley.
Jan 26, 2024
Alabama on Thursday night became the first U.S. state to execute a person using nitrogen gas, killing 58-year-old Kenneth Smith by depriving his body of oxygen after the nation's Supreme Court rejected his legal team's last-ditch appeal.
The state's notoriously incompetent executioners, who tried and failed to kill Smith via lethal injection in 2022, strapped the condemned man to a gurney and administered the nitrogen gas through a full-face mask. Smith was pronounced dead shortly before 8:30 pm after around four minutes of convulsions.
"Tonight, Alabama caused humanity to take a step backwards," Smith said in his final statement. "I'm leaving with love, peace, and light. Thank you for supporting me, love all of you."
Smith was first convicted and sentenced to death in 1989 for the murder-for-hire killing of Elizabeth Sennett in 1988, a crime committed when he was 22 years old. That conviction was overturned, but he was convicted again seven years later, with the jury recommending a life sentence.
An Alabama judge, N. Pride Tompkins, then did something that used to be relatively common in the state but was banned in 2017: He overrode the jury, sentencing Smith to death.
Alabama's decision to kill Smith by flooding his lungs with nitrogen—a method that veterinarians consider unethical for euthanizing animals—drew global condemnation, with United Nations experts warning the execution would likely violate both U.S. and international laws against torture.
"I deeply regret the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith in Alabama despite serious concerns this novel and untested method of suffocation by nitrogen gas may amount to torture, or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment," Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement.
"The death penalty is inconsistent with the fundamental right to life," he continued. "I urge all states to put in place a moratorium on its use, as a step towards universal abolition."
Earlier this week, Alabama residents gathered outside the state's Capitol building in Montgomery to protest the planned execution of Smith. One demonstrator held a sign that read, "Say no to the gas chamber!"
Capital punishment has been declining in popularity in the U.S. for decades, but states like Alabama and Oklahoma have continued executing inmates even as pharmaceutical companies and equipment manufacturers have made it increasingly difficult to obtain materials necessary for lethal injections. The Trump administration worked for years to build a "secret supply chain" for lethal-injection drugs before its 2020 execution spree.
Three U.S. Supreme Court justices—Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Elena Kagan—dissented from the decision to reject the final attempt to halt Smith's execution.
"Smith is the first person in this country ever to be executed this way," Sotomayor wrote. "The details are hazy because Alabama released its heavily redacted protocol under five months ago. What Smith knows is that he will be strapped to a gurney. He will wear a nitrogen-supplying, off-the-rack mask for which the state has not fitted him or even tried on him."
"Having failed to kill Smith on its first attempt, Alabama has selected him as its 'guinea pig' to test a method of execution never attempted before," the justice added. "The world is watching. This court yet again permits Alabama to 'experiment... with a human life,' while depriving Smith of 'meaningful discovery' on meritorious constitutional claims."
President Joe Biden vowed to work toward abolition of the death penalty at the federal level during his 2020 campaign, but advocates say he has done virtually nothing to fulfill that pledge. The Biden Justice Department has continued to seek the death penalty in select cases and fight efforts to reverse death sentences.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), the lead House sponsor of legislation that would end the federal death penalty, called Smith's execution "absolutely unconscionable."
"We must work to abolish the death penalty and end this cruel and inhumane punishment," Pressley wrote on social media.
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US Supreme Court Refuses to Stop Alabama Nitrogen Gas Execution
"The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment, and we urge Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to use her clemency power to stop the execution of Kenneth Smith before it's too late," said one group.
Jan 24, 2024
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday denied an application to stop the execution of a man on Alabama's death row who is set to become the first person in the country to be killed with nitrogen gas in a method rejected by veterinarians for euthanizing animals and condemned by United Nations human rights experts as possible torture.
The justices rejected assertions by lawyers representing 58-year-old Kenneth Smith—who was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Sennett—that execution by the untested method of suffocation with nitrogen gas violates the U.S. Constitution's prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment."
The attorneys' argument was based largely on the fact that Smith survived a botched attempt to execute him by lethal injection in November 2022.
Smith's petition for a writ of certiorari asked: "Does a second attempt to execute a condemned person following a single, cruelly willful attempt to execute that same person violate the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments under the Eighth and 14th amendments to the United States Constitution?"
A separate challenge by Smith to the use of nitrogen gas in his execution is pending before the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Two other states, Mississippi and Oklahoma, have approved the use of nitrogen gas for executions. States have scrambled to find alternative means of killing condemned inmates after the European Union banned the sale and export of lethal injection drugs in 2011.
Earlier this month, Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, warned that the U.S. may be violating the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment by allowing Smith's execution by nitrogen asphyxia.
Shamdasani noted that the American Veterinary Medical Association recommends sedating animals before euthanizing them with nitrogen—a step that is not included in Alabama's protocol.
In addition to concerns over the method of Smith's impending execution, advocates have also pointed to flaws in his sentencing process. The jury that convicted him in 1996 voted 11-1 to recommend a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, but a judge invoked a since-outlawed rule to override the jurors.
Rights groups urged Alabama's Republican governor to halt Smith's execution—a move she declined in 2022.
"The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment, and we urge Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to use her clemency power to stop the execution of Kenneth Smith before it's too late," Amnesty International implored Wednesday.
Abraham Bonowitz, co-founder of the abolitionist group Death Penalty Action, called Wednesday "a shameful day for our country."
"The discussion that is missing in all of this hubbub around nitrogen hypoxia is the mental torture of a second execution attempt," he added. "That, and the fact that if Kenny Smith were on trial today, he could not be sentenced to death at all because his jury was not unanimous regarding his sentence. Jury overrides were outlawed in Alabama in 2017. Alabama's capital punishment system as a whole is broken and cannot be trusted to get it right."
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