After a botched execution, Alabama tries an untested new method

It was November 17, 2022, and Kenneth Smith lay on a stretcher in the Alabama execution chamber, his arms and legs bound, as he waited to be put to death. Mr Smith, who had been on death row for more than a quarter of a century after being convicted of murdering a woman, recalled thanking God for the last week he was alive and thinking of his family.

At the time, the state used the same execution method used in the vast majority of modern American executions: lethal injection. And like many other states, Alabama had problems. That night, a team of people repeatedly tried and failed to place an intravenous line in Mr. Smith's arms and hands, eventually reaching a vein near his heart. The stinging stopped — according to his lawyers, who recounted in court papers Mr. Smith's experiences that evening — when prison officials decided they might not have time to carry out the execution before the death sentence expired at midnight.

Now, more than a year later, Alabama is once again preparing for Mr. Smith's execution this week, this time using a method never used in an American execution: nitrogen hypoxia. Under this method, which is used in assisted suicide in Europe, Mr Smith will be fitted with a mask and administered a stream of nitrogen gas, effectively depriving him of oxygen until he dies.

The execution, scheduled for Thursday evening, is the latest twist in the fraught battle over executions in the US, where a growing number of states are banning the death penalty; those who retain the punishment find it difficult to carry it out. Pressure from activist and medical groups has made it challenging for prison officials to obtain lethal drugs, and a series of executions in the past two years have been plagued by problems finding veins. Alabama is one of several states exploring alternatives, including nitrogen hypoxia, and some states have recently authorized the use of a firing squad.

This week's scheduled execution has galvanized death penalty critics who say Alabama prison officials are making Mr. Smith a test subject for an unproven and potentially macabre experiment. State officials claim that death from nitrogen hypoxia is painless because it causes a person to quickly lose consciousness. They note that Mr. Smith's lawyers themselves have determined that nitrogen hypoxia is preferable to Alabama's burdensome administration of lethal injection drugs.

Last week, a federal judge in Alabama spoke a request rejected by Mr. Smith's lawyers to halt the execution. Mr. Smith has appealed, and the case will most likely continue before the U.S. Supreme Court, which in recent years has been reluctant to halt executions at the last minute.

Mr Smith, who responded to written questions by email, said he was concerned the process could go wrong.

“I'm afraid we've told Alabama that these risks can happen — will happen — just as we warned them last year,” he said. “And they will do nothing to prevent these dangers from happening.”

The details of how the proceedings are expected to unfold are laid out in a 40-page protocol document Alabama released last summer, the public version of which is heavily redacted.

What is known is that Mr. Smith will be led from his cell at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility to the prison's death chamber. The complex is in Atmore, Ala., about 60 miles northeast of Mobile, and five reporters are allowed to witness the execution. Mr Smith is placed on a stretcher and a mask is placed over his face, after which he is given two minutes to say his final words. Then the prison guard or an assistant will begin pumping the gas into Mr. Smith's mask for at least 15 minutes.

Few people have an intimate knowledge of what a nitrogen hypoxia execution might look like. However, one of them is Dr. Philip Nitschke, a pioneer in assisted suicide, who recently invented a capsule that fills with nitrogen so people can end their lives.

Dr. Nitschke estimates he has witnessed at least 50 deaths from nitrogen hypoxia. He was called by Mr. Smith's lawyers in December to testify during their efforts to block the execution, and he met with Mr. Smith. After visiting the execution chamber in Alabama and examining the mask that will be used by the state in Mr. Smith's death, Dr. Nitschke said in an interview that he could imagine scenarios ranging from a quick and painless death to death with significant suffering if the situation arose. going wrong.

He said the major difference between Alabama's protocols and those of its assisted suicide in Europe and Australia lies in Alabama's plan to use a mask. He said it would create a greater chance of a leak – which would let in oxygen and prolong the process – than a chamber, capsule or plastic bag.

“I'm worried about Kenny, and I just don't know which way things are going to go,” said Dr. Nitschke about Mr. Smith, who he said seemed very nervous when the two met.

“What he would have liked to hear from me,” said Dr. Nitschke, “was that this would work well.” But, he said, he didn't feel he could promise Mr. Smith that much. Instead, he viewed Alabama's protocols as a “quick and nasty” attempt at nitrogen hypoxia, ignoring the potential dangers of vomiting and air leakage.

During the execution, Mr.'s spiritual advisor will be in the room. Smith present, Rev. Jeff Hood, who lives in Little Rock, Ark. He started in November with Mr. Smith developed what he describes as a close bond, and planned to be present during the performance.

Mr. Hood said in an interview that he feared what Mr. Smith would have to endure, and he raised the possibility that Mr. Smith might physically resist the execution attempt.

“This is not going to be a peaceful experiment,” Mr Hood said, adding: “I think it's important that people realize that if you tie someone up like that, you can't expect someone to suffocate – suffocate to death – for no reason. to resist.”

Mr. Hood said he also worried about his own safety and noted that prison officials needed him to sign a waiver that warns of the potential dangers of nitrogen and to keep a distance of one meter from Mr Smith while wearing the mask.

Mr. Smith is executed for the 1988 stabbing murder of Elizabeth Sennett, following testimony that Mrs. Sennett's husband, a minister, had offered to pay Mr. Smith and two other men $1,000 each to kill her. (The preacher, Charles Sennett Sr., later committed suicide.) The jurors who convicted Mr. Smith voted 11 to 1 to spare his life and instead sentence him to life in prison, but a judge overruled them 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 said he did not believe it was the judge's right to overrule the jury's verdict in his case. Since the failed execution attempt, Mr. Smith said, he had suffered from severe anxiety and depression.

For Ms Sennett's sons, the execution cannot come soon enough – especially after the failed attempt in 2022 – and they have said the new method caused them little concern.

“Some of these people say, 'Well, he doesn't have to suffer like this,'” one son, Charles Sennett Jr., said told WAAY 31 television station. “Well, he didn't ask Mom how to suffer. They just did it. They stabbed her several times.”

Mr Sennett said he and other family members planned to attend the execution.

Another son, Michael Sennett, told NBC News last month that he was frustrated that the state had taken so long to carry out an execution that the judge had 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.”

A slew of botched executions in Alabama, including that of Mr. Smith, prompted the state's governor, Kay Ivey, a Republican, to order a temporary pause in executions while prison officials reviewed their procedures. Ms. Ivey lifted the pause after a few months, with prison officials describing some minor changes and a new rule that gives the state more time to carry out executions.

Since executions resumed, the state has killed two death row inmates and has not had the kind of problems that plagued previous attempts.

Polls consistently show that a small majority of Americans support the death penalty, with a sharp divide along political lines. Most Republicans (81 percent) and only 32 percent of Democrats support the death penalty for people convicted of murder. one Gallup poll last year.

Still, the number of executions has declined significantly since the modern peak of 98 in 1999. Last year, states executed 24 people, and the federal government has played an increasing role in recent years. The Trump administration has put 13 people to death by lethal injection, the first executions by the federal government since George W. Bush was president.

Last week, the Justice Department under President Joe Biden, who campaigned on ending the federal death penalty, said it would seek the death penalty against a white gunman who killed 10 Black people in a racist attack on a Buffalo supermarket.

Anna Betts reporting contributed.