Alabama under fire for 'human experiment' on death row

Kenneth Smith is one of two living Americans who can describe what it is like to survive an execution, having endured an aborted lethal injection during which he was subjected to excruciating pain tantamount, his lawyers claim, to torture

-  Ed Pilkington

Nine months later, Smith has been singled out for another undesirable distinction. If the state of Alabama has its way, he will be submitted to a method that has never been used for execution and which veterinarians consider unacceptable for animals death by nitrogen gas.

Alabama's attorney general has asked the state supreme court to set a fresh execution date for Smith using the untested system.

The method, known as "nitrogen hypoxia", theoretically works by replacing air with nitrogen, reducing oxygen levels to fatally low levels and leading to suffocation.

Death penalty experts have decried what is in effect a human experiment. The choice of Smith as the first candidate has also been criticised as a double violation of the eighth amendment protection against "cruel and unusual punishments". Smith, 58, was convicted of the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Sennett. He was paid $1,000 to kill her by Sennett's husband, who was in debt and wanted the insurance payout.

At Smith's trial, the jury voted 11-1 for a life sentence, but the judge overruled them and sent him to death row.

In 2022, Smith was one of three Alabama death row inmates involved in catastrophic lethal injection procedures.