Alabama applauds the implementation of nitrogen gas, a new attempt to address an old problem

Such adjustments have happened before. When hangings were considered slow and gruesome and an inappropriate form of public entertainment, executioners tried to improve matters by using gallows instead of tree branches, and then scaffolding instead of gallows. has written. But the efforts were “plagued by guesswork and inconsistency,” she said.

Eventually, a New York State commission charged with making executions more humane came up with the electric chair. The first victim, in 1890, trembled for half a minute after he was pronounced dead, Ms. Denno wrote.

The U.S. Supreme Court has never declared an execution method invalid. In 2018, it set the standard that the chosen method cannot “super-add” terror, pain or shame, said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. But prisoners who object to the proposed method of execution must provide a feasible and easily obtainable method of execution. available alternative, the court said.

In that 2018 case, the inmate, Russell Bucklew of Missouri, had already proposed nitrogen hypoxia as an alternative, but it was rejected. He wasn't the only prisoner who tried to choose nitrogen gas. In 2022, Richard Atwood, a death row inmate in Arizona, petitioned the state to do so use nitrogen in the gas chamber instead of cyanide. Cyanide executions were described as prolonged and painful. And Mr. Atwood's mother was Jewish and was on the run from the Nazis, who used a form of cyanide in their gas chambers.

The state denied the request and Mr. Atwood died from lethal injection.

Proponents of nitrogen hypoxia call it a painless and “almost perfectmethod of implementation. But experts, including Dr. Philip Nitschke, a pioneer of assisted suicide who has witnessed dozens of deaths from nitrogen hypoxia, warned of the risk of substantial suffering if something went wrong. Opponents of the death penalty argue that the method is experimental and could prove dangerous to those who practice it. Nitrogen gas has caused deaths in industrial accidents and been used in physician-assisted suicides, but had never been tested in a death chamber before Thursday evening.

Even if Mr. Smith's execution appeared to proceed without unintended consequences, opponents of the death penalty said the suffering could be difficult to perceive. Autopsies of people killed by lethal injection have suggested that their pain was masked rather than reduced by paralysis.