Kenneth Smith, “Torture.” Use in crosshairs after running on nitrogen

For the first time in history, Alabama executed a prisoner using nitrogen gas, an untested procedure that human rights groups and even the UN believe could amount to true torture. Kenneth Eugene Smith, definitively sentenced to death in 1996 for the contract murder of a woman, was pronounced dead at 8:25 pm local time (Italian night), 29 minutes after the execution began. After inhaling nitrogen gas through an industrial-style mask placed over his head and running out of oxygen, he died of hypoxia. His last words, with his mask on, were: «Tonight Alabama makes humanity take a step back. Thank you for supporting me. I love you all”.

The story of the journalists, eyewitnesses to the execution, is stunning: after the gas began to leak, Smith struggled for a few minutes and was seen breathing heavily for a few more minutes. “Smith was writhing and writhing on the gurney. He took a deep breath, his body shook violently and his eyes rolled into the back of his head,” said Marty Roney of the Montgomery Advertiser. «He clenched his fists, his legs were shaking, he seemed to be panting. The gurney shook several times.” The Reverend Jeff Hood, Smith’s spiritual advisor, who was at his side during the execution, said prison officials present “were visibly surprised by the severity of the situation.” But the director of the Department of Alabama Corrections, John Hamm, in the subsequent press conference stated that the shaking was “involuntary” and nothing extraordinary, according to Hamm, the inmate “held his breath as long as possible.” Nitrogen gas flowed for about 15 minutes, the procedure took 22 minutes in total. A few minutes before the execution, the United States Supreme Court rejected the last appeal that the prisoner’s defense presented yesterday: 6 votes in favor and 3 against. The judgment of one of the judges, the progressive Sonia Sotomayor, one of the three who voted to suspend the execution, was very harsh: “Having failed to kill Smith on the first attempt, Alabama chose him as a ‘guinea pig’ to test a method of execution never used before.”

In reality, Smith should have been dead for more than a year: he underwent a lethal injection on November 17, 2022, but survived, in the midst of unbearable pain, because the executioners were unable to find the right vein to carry out the task. . Since then, Smith has shown signs related to the trauma of the experience: insomnia, anguish and depression. Among other things, his lawyers argued that, precisely because he had gone through that ordeal, it was now doubly cruel to inflict another one on him. In recent days, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Community of San Egidio have asked the United States not to allow the execution. The European Union also deplored the execution as “particularly cruel” and reiterated its opposition to the death penalty “in all circumstances”. Civil rights activist organizations also called for an end to the second execution, defined as brutal, bordering on torture, to the point that it is not even adopted by veterinarians for the euthanasia of animals, but all appeals were rejected. Thus came the final countdown.