US Supreme Court declines to halt execution of Alabama inmate set to be the first to die by nitrogen gas

[brooklynite]

Source: CNN

The US Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to halt the execution of Alabama death row inmate Kenneth Smith, who is scheduled to be put to death this week using nitrogen gas – a wholly new method some experts have decried as veiled in secrecy amid concerns it could lead to excessive pain or even torture.

Smith is due to be executed during a 30-hour window starting Thursday for his part in a 1988 murder for hire. The state 14 months ago aborted an effort to execute him by lethal injection because officials could not set an intravenous line before the execution warrant expired.

Before and after that episode, Smith expressed a desire to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia, a method only Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississippi have approved and none has used; only Alabama has outlined a protocol for it.

Smith and his attorneys last week asked the Supreme Court to pause this week’s scheduled execution and grant a writ of certiorari so they could argue trying to execute Smith a second time would amount to cruel and unusual punishment, violating the Eighth and 14th Amendments.


Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/24/us/alabama-kenneth-smith-execution/index.html

[chicoescuela]

1. Of course, did we expect anything different

[lastlib]

2. Effing blood-lusting basturds.

End this Barbarity NOW!

[doc03]

3. That sounds like a horrible way to die.

[Fullduplexxx]

5. It's not. you feel nothing, like dying by carbon monoxide

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

9. So back a truck up and hook a hose from the exhaust pipe to the execution chamber.

When I was a student navigator in the Air Force they put us in an altitude chamber and pumped the air out until the pressure equaled that found at 45,000 feet (about 2 psi; sea level is 14.7 psi). We all had our oxygen masks on, breathing pressurized oxygen. I was doing fine until one of the techs pointed at me and said, "Take off your mask, lieutenant." When I did I felt no discomfort. "Try to whistle" (couldn't). "Hold your hands palms up." (done) "Palms down. Hold your hands palms down." The next thing I knew I was sitting with a tech putting my mask on. The time of useful consciousness at 45,000 feet is about 15 seconds.

At no time did I feel an sense of discomfort, or panic, or suffocation. I just did what I was told to do until I didn't. Had the techs -- who are always on the ball -- not taken action when they did I would have died within five minutes. It would have been a painless way to die.

[Fullduplexxx]

11. the feeling of suffocation isnt from lack of oxygen but the prescence of carbon dioxide....iirc

[limbicnuminousity]

12. Yes.

Not an issue with inert gases.

[brooklynite]

6. Its apparently painless

The body reacts to nitrogen the same way it reacts to the atmosphere. And the convict has requested this form of execution.

[SarahD]

4. Comforting.

Nothing gives me the warm tingles like torturing someone to death. On the second attempt. Makes me proud to be an American. Where's my flag? I feel the urge to hit somebody with it.

[JoseBalow]

7. That would be my second method of choice

[jvill]

8. Cruelty is the point.

N/t

[Chainfire]

10. It is is such a painless process why do Veternarians reject it as unethical?

What needs to be put to death is the death penalty.

[limbicnuminousity]

13. Because pentobarbitol is the preferred method for euthanasia

and pentobarbitol is very difficult to obtain for anyone other than a vet. Right-to-die groups try to connect people with foreign veterinarians to access pentobarbitol for that very reason.