Kenneth Smith has become the first person in the world to be put to death by nitrogen gas after officials at the Alabama Department of Corrections executed him.
Smith, 58, was executed on Thursday and died from nitrogen hypoxia at 8.25pm CT, the state’s Republican Governor Kay Ivey confirmed.
“On March 18, 1988, 45-year-old Elizabeth Sennett’s life was brutally taken from her by Kenneth Eugene Smith. After more than 30 years and attempt after attempt to game the system, Mr. Smith has answered for his horrendous crimes,” Ms Ivey said in a written statement.
“The execution was lawfully carried out by nitrogen hypoxia, the method previously requested by Mr Smith as an alternative to lethal injection. At long last, Mr. Smith got what he asked for, and this case can finally be put to rest.
“I pray that Elizabeth Sennett’s family can receive closure after all these years dealing with that great loss.”
Before his execution, Smith was visited in prison by his wife and sons, who also witnessed his execution. His last meal was steak, eggs and hash browns.
It was the second attempt to execute Smith. In November 2022, officials attempted to kill him with lethal injection but were unable to place two intravenous lines into his system for four hours. Authorities eventually gave up because Smith’s death warrant was expiring.
At the time, it was the third consecutive botched execution attempt by the state using lethal injection. Smith said the experience left him with physical and psychological pain, including post-traumatic stress disorder.
When thinking about his second execution attempt, Smith voiced his preference for nitrogen hypoxia but expressed concern about the state’s untested method, including the likelihood that he could vomit, be left in a vegetative state or experience the painful sensation of suffocation.
According to Alabama’s death penalty protocol for nitrogen hypoxia, prisoners are to be put to death with a fitted mask and breathing tube to control gas, slowly depriving them of oxygen.
Retching is a known symptom of oxygen deprivation. If a prisoner were to vomit, officials told a federal court that they would not step in, meaning that Smith risked potentially choking to death.
In the weeks leading up to his execution, his attorneys tried several last-ditch attempts to spare his life, including filing petitions with the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals and the US Supreme Court.
Nearly an hour after Smith’s scheduled execution time of 6pm, the Supreme Court issued its final decision in the case, allowing Alabama to proceed with the execution. Liberal Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson dissented.
Earlier in the day, Smith’s attorneys appealed a Wednesday federal court ruling.
The attorneys had asked the court to block the execution due to the risks associated with the method. In a separate appeal that also made its way to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, justices were asked whether attempting a second execution on Smith would constitute “cruel and unusual punishments” under the Eighth and 14th Amendments of the US Constitution.
Both courts decided against intervening the day before Smith was put to death. An order issued by the Supreme Court on Wednesday did not include additional comments or dissenting opinions.
But in Thursday’s order, Justice Sotomayor, who wrote a dissenting opinion, said she viewed the case similarly to Judge Jill Pryor, who dissented in the federal court ruling on Wednesday. In that decision, Judge Pryor wrote the execution could cost “Mr Smith’s human dignity, and ours.”
Justice Sotomayor went further to say she would stop Smith from being put to death using the experimental method.
“While I would grant the petition for a writ of certiorari and summarily reverse the Eleventh Circuit’s order affirming the denial of Smith’s preliminary-injunction motion, at a minimum, I would grant Smith’s request for a stay of execution,” she wrote.
