US court ruling: Alabama is the first state to be allowed to execute prisoners with nitrogen gas

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The Alabama Supreme Court on Wednesday approved the execution of a prisoner with nitrogen gas. This comes after the execution of death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith (59) failed a year ago. Smith had two intravenous tubes that could not be connected for the lethal injection. The executioners found no vein.

Smith then sued the state of Alabama: he would rather suffocate than be tortured with the syringe again. His lawyers accused authorities of “torturing him for hours during the execution attempt and subjecting him to the severe psychological torment of a mock execution.”

The ruling brings the state closer to the first nitrogen gas execution in the United States. However, legal objections are expected, the American broadcaster Fox News reports. No state has ever tried nitrogen hypoxia, that is, oxygen deprivation, as a method of execution.

Should be painless

The proposed method would force the condemned candidate to inhale only nitrogen. This would deprive the body of essential oxygen, leading to instant death.

Nitrogen makes up 78 percent of the air that humans breathe and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen. Proponents of the new method assume that it is painless. Opponents, on the other hand, speak of experiments on humans.

A series of complications led Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, 79, to initially suspend executions: Smith’s failed attempt was the second in two months, the third since 2018. In July, Alabama resumed executions through a lethal injection. (kes)

Source: Blick