The Alabama foreclosure case: What we know

Alabama will carry out the first execution in the United States on Thursday using nitrogen gas, a method that state officials say is painless but that critics say can cause long-term suffering.

The execution of the inmate, Kenneth Smith, will take place sometime Thursday evening at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, but could be carried out anytime until 6 a.m. Friday morning. Authorities in Alabama were waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling before moving forward.

Here are a few things you need to know about the case.

Who is Kenneth Smith and what was his crime?

Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, was one of three men convicted in the stabbing murder of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, 45, whose pastor husband recruited them to kill her in March 1988 in Colbert County, Ala.

According to court documents, Mrs Sennett, a mother of two, was stabbed 10 times by Mr Smith and another man during the attack. Charles Sennett Sr., Mrs. Sennett's husband, had recruited a man to handle her murder, who in turn recruited Mr. Smith and another man.

According to court records, Mr. Sennett arranged the murder in part to collect on an insurance policy he took out on his wife. He had promised the men $1,000 each for the murder.

What were the circumstances surrounding his death sentence?

Mr. Smith was convicted in 1996. At his conviction, 11 of the 12 jurors voted to spare his life and sentence him to life imprisonment, but the judge in the case, N. Pride Tompkins, decided to reverse their decision and sentenced him to death.

In 2017, Alabama no longer allowed judges to overrule death penalty juries in such a manner, and such rulings are no longer allowed anywhere in the United States.

Mr Smith, who was 22 years old at the time of the offence, has previously said he did not believe it was up to the judge alone to overrule the jury's verdict in his case.

In a statement, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey previously said that while Alabama had made a “necessary” change to prohibit judges from overruling jurors' recommendations, lawmakers had chosen not to retroactively implement the law to honor verdicts that had already been spoken. and the victims' families who relied on them for justice.

What happened to Mrs. Sennett's husband and the others?

Mr Sennett committed suicide shortly after his wife's murder.

One of the other men involved in the murder, John Forrest Parker, was executed by lethal injection in 2010and another, Billy Gray Williams, was sentenced to life in prison and died behind bars in 2020.

The state tried to execute Mr. Smith before. What happened?

In November 2022, the state attempted to execute Mr. Smith using lethal injection. But that night, a team of prison workers tried repeatedly to insert an intravenous line into Mr. Smith's arms and hands, and repeatedly failed to get a vein near his heart.

Ultimately, after multiple attempts, prison officials decided they did not have time to carry out the execution before the death sentence expired at midnight.

What is known about this method with nitrogen?

The method, known as nitrogen hypoxia, has been used in assisted suicide in Europe. Mr Smith will be fitted with a mask and given a stream of nitrogen gas, effectively depriving him of oxygen until he dies.

Lawyers for the state have argued that death from nitrogen hypoxia is painless, with unconsciousness occurring within seconds, followed by cardiac arrest.

They also noted that Mr. Smith and his lawyers have themselves determined that the method is preferable to the state's problematic practice of lethal injections.

But Mr. Smith's lawyers have argued that Alabama is not adequately prepared to carry out the execution, and that a mask — instead of a bag or other covering — could let in enough oxygen to prolong the process and allow Mr. to make Smith suffer.

What does the victim's family say about the execution?

“Some of these people say, 'Well, he doesn't have to suffer like this,'” Charles Sennett Jr., one of Mrs. Sennett's sons, told local station WAAY31 this month. “Well, he didn't ask Mom how to suffer. They just did it. They stabbed her several times.”

Another son, Michael Sennett, told NBC News in December that he was frustrated that the state had taken so long to carry out an execution the judge ordered decades ago.

“I don't care how he gets out, as long as he gets out,” he said, noting that Mr. Smith had “spent twice as long in prison as long as I've known my mother.”