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It happens for the first time in the world, the USA carries out the execution of a prisoner by nitrogen gas

2024-01-26 08:18:45Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
It happens for the first time in the world, the USA carries out the execution of
Kenneth Eugene Smith

Kenneth Eugene Smith became the first American death row inmate killed using a nitrogen mask. He was executed Thursday evening in Alabama.

At 10 a.m., Smith ate his last meal, steak, potatoes and eggs, bought from a Waffle House fast-food restaurant near the prison. From then on he did not consume anything, because the executioner was afraid that he would vomit during the execution. He met his family for a final farewell.

The execution was scheduled for 6 p.m., but recent legal appeals, all rejected, delayed it. Tied to the stone, just before the executioner placed the nitrogen mask over his face, Smith made his final statement: "Tonight Alabama made humanity take a step back. I leave with love, peace and light, thank you for you supported me, I love you."

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Smith is the first person to be executed using nitrogen gas anywhere in the world. Five members of the media were allowed to watch the execution.

Smith, according to witness accounts, was "trembling and writhing on a rock" for the first two to four minutes. After several minutes of labored breathing, he was pronounced dead at 20:25 local time (02:35 GMT).

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who did not respond to a request to attend the execution, confirmed Smith's death in a statement.

"Smith has answered for his horrific crimes. "I pray that Elizabeth Sennett's family can bear this great loss," she said.
Attorney General Steve Marshall said nitrogen gas had proven to be "an effective and humane method of execution", dismissing the "dire predictions" of activists and the media.

"Justice has been served," he said in his statement.
When prison authorities were asked at a press conference why Smith was shaking when the execution began, the answer was that he appeared to be holding his breath "as long as he could." So "there were some involuntary movements. Everything was expected in the side effects that we saw and studied on nitrogen hypoxia. Nothing was unusual compared to what we expected."

Smith was 58 and had been sentenced to death for the 1988 murder of a woman, Elizabeth Sennett. Sennett's husband, a Protestant minister named Charles, had paid Kenneth and two other accomplices $1,000 each to the killing of the woman. His goal was to collect his wife's life insurance money because he was drowning in debt. The three killers had attacked him by stabbing him eleven times.

At trial, Smith was found guilty, but the jury sentenced him to life in prison. However, the judge did not accept the decision, changing it to the death penalty. The victim's children had called for the killers to be executed.

Smith's execution was first scheduled for 2022, by lethal injection, but the executioner could not before the state's death warrant expired. So the local authorities decided to change the method, switching to a nitrogen mask.

Smith's lawyers filed several appeals, arguing that it was an "unusual and cruel" sentence and therefore prohibited by law. They also denounced the risk of a slow and painful death because the mask was suitable for everyone and might not cause immediate death. There was also a risk that the convict would suffer a stroke and remain in a coma.

Alabama and two other US states have approved killing by nitrogen mask as an alternative method of execution because the drugs used in lethal injections have become harder to find.


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