Breathe Deep, the Gathering Gloom: Alabama Executes Inmate with Nitrogen Gas

[Bill]

https://www.reuters.com/legal/alabam...on-2024-01-25/

Seems a lot cheaper than lethal injection.

Alabama gasses prisoner with nitrogen in first new execution method in decades
By Evan Garcia and Jonathan Allen
January 26, 20243:58 AM

ATMORE, Alabama, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Alabama on Thursday executed convicted murderer Kenneth Smith, who held his breath in vain as officials asphyxiated him with nitrogen gas, the first use of a new method of capital punishment since lethal injections began in the U.S. four decades ago.
Smith, convicted of a 1988 murder-for-hire, was a rare prisoner who had already survived one execution attempt. In November 2022, Alabama officials aborted his execution by lethal injection after struggling for hours to insert an intravenous line's needle in his body.
The state has called its new closely watched protocol "the most painless and humane method of execution known to man." It predicted Smith would lose consciousness in under a minute and die soon after, although witnesses on Thursday said it appeared to take several minutes longer.
Alabama has touted asphyxiation as a simpler alternative for prison systems that struggle to find either veins or the required drugs for lethal injections.
Human rights groups, United Nations torture experts and lawyers for Smith had sought to prevent it, saying the method was risky, experimental and could lead to an agonizing death or non-fatal injury.

B_D Commentary: Pretty sure if you deprive anyone of oxygen long enough, they die. The older guys that I have met that work for the gas company tell stories about how gas workers died in a hole trying to fix a leaky gas pipe. The gas pushes out all the oxygen, and that's it. Dead.

In Smith's second and final trip to the execution chamber on Thursday, executioners restrained him in a gurney and strapped a commercial industrial-safety respirator mask to his face. A canister of pure nitrogen was attached to the mask that, once flowing, deprived him of oxygen.
The execution began at 7:53 p.m. (0153 GMT Friday) and Smith was declared dead at 8:25 p.m. (0225 GMT), prison officials said.
Smith appeared to remain conscious for several minutes after the nitrogen was activated, according to five journalists who were allowed to watch the execution through glass as media witnesses. Although the mask was also secured to the gurney, he then began shaking his head and writhing for about two minutes, and then could be seen breathing deeply for several minutes before his breathing slowed and became imperceptible, the witnesses said.
"It appeared that Smith was holding his breath as long as he could," Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm told a press conference. "He struggled against the restraints a little bit but it's an involuntary movement and some agonal breathing. So that was all expected."
Rev. Jeff Hood, Smith's spiritual adviser, was at Smith's side for the execution, and said prison officials in the room "were visibly surprised at how bad this thing went."
"What we saw was minutes of someone struggling for their life," Hood, attending his fifth execution in the last 15 months, told reporters. "We saw minutes of someone heaving back and forth. We saw spit. We saw all sorts of stuff from his mouth develop on the mask. We saw this mask tied to the gurney, and him ripping his head forward over and over and over again."
Before the nitrogen was switched on, Smith made a lengthy final statement that began: "Tonight, Alabama caused humanity to take a step backward."

[1/9]Alabama's Commissioner of the Department of Corrections John Hamm shakes hands with Mike Sennett, son of the late Elizabeth Sennett, following the execution of Kenneth Smith by asphyxiation using pure nitrogen at Holman Correctional Facility, in Atmore, Alabama, U.S. January 25, 2024. Smith was... Acquire Licensing Rights


His wife and other relatives attended and he gestured towards them. "I'm leaving with love, peace and light," he said, according to media witnesses. "Love all of you."
FAILED CHALLENGES
Smith mounted legal challenges in federal courts arguing that Alabama's new method amounted to unconstitutional "cruel and unusual punishment," but he failed to cross the high bar needed to have a judge order a delay of his execution.
His lawyers raised fears the mask would not properly seal against Smith's face, allowing oxygen to seep in, delaying or even averting the moment of unconsciousness but risking serious brain injury.
Though poisonous gases such as hydrogen cyanide have been used in executions in the U.S. and beyond in the past, this was the first time a death sentence was carried out anywhere using an inert gas to suffocate someone, capital punishment experts say.
Oklahoma and Mississippi have also approved nitrogen asphyxiation methods for executions, but have yet to deploy it.
Smith, who has suffered from nausea since he survived his first execution attempt, also raised concerns he would vomit into the mask and choke. In response, prison officials said they would serve him his final meal on Thursday morning and forbid any solid foods after 10 a.m.. His final meal was steak, hash browns and eggs.
The U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority rejected Smith's final appeal to delay his death on Thursday evening, and the execution began soon after.
"On March 18, 1988, 45-year-old Elizabeth Sennett's life was brutally taken from her by Kenneth Eugene Smith," Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, a Republican, said in a statement. "After more than 30 years and attempt after attempt to game the system, Mr. Smith has answered for his horrendous crimes."
Smith was convicted of murdering Sennett, a preacher's wife, after he and accomplices each accepted a $1,000 fee from her husband to kill her, according to trial testimony.
Eleven of 12 jurors voted to sentence Smith to life in prison, but an Alabama judge overruled their recommendation under a law that has since been abolished as unconstitutional.
Several of Sennett's relatives attended the execution and told reporters they had forgiven Sennett's killers.
"Nothing that happened here today is going to bring mom back," Mike Sennett said. "It's a bittersweet day, we're not going to be jumping around, hooping and hollering, hooraying and all that, that's not us. We're glad this day is over."

[gs568]

Good, now do the rest of them that deserve it.

[Onebadcad]

Yeah, but, they say it took almost 30 minutes--more to come from the left on this.
IMO, let it take longer so the POSs can think more about the lives they ruined.

[Onebadcad]

The Old West had it right, almost no costs as rope and post was reuseable, no appeals, no prison expense.

[Mike Mercury]

he then began shaking his head and writhing for about two minutes, and then could be seen breathing deeply for several minutes...

so ???

[SurfnSun]

Why not run a pipe from a car's exhaust into a small room? Plenty of people die in garages that way....go to sleep and done.

[KenHorse]

he then began shaking his head and writhing for about two minutes, and then could be seen breathing deeply for several minutes...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhHVfebcBPE

[Louie Detroit]

.

[Bill]

Every state should offer the firing squad as an option available to death row prisoners, complete with last cigarette, offer of a blindfold, etc. And they should take volunteers to do the shooting, because I imagine that would give prison guards PTSD to do that several times. Volunteers mean no need for some of the shooters to use blanks. Everyone gets a live round.

If I was going to be executed, that's how I'd want to go. My last statement would be a loud FU to everyone, I'll smoke a cigarette even though I don't smoke, refuse the blindfold, then continue shouting epithets until I'm shot dead. I'd prefer to die on my feet, not strapped to a table.

[Onebadcad]

Originally Posted by SurfnSun

Why not run a pipe from a car's exhaust into a small room? Plenty of people die in garages that way....go to sleep and done.

Just strap them into GSC3's telsa flannel, take them for a ride down yaddy's street, hit a few driveway rocks and watch them go thru the windshield.

[Bill]

No love for the @onedef92-esque thread title? Damn. Rough crowd.

[SurfnSun]

Originally Posted by bill_daniels

Every state should offer the firing squad as an option available to death row prisoners, complete with last cigarette, offer of a blindfold, etc. And they should take volunteers to do the shooting, because I imagine that would give prison guards PTSD to do that several times. Volunteers mean no need for some of the shooters to use blanks. Everyone gets a live round.

If I was going to be executed, that's how I'd want to go. My last statement would be a loud FU to everyone, I'll smoke a cigarette even though I don't smoke, refuse the blindfold, then continue shouting epithets until I'm shot dead. I'd prefer to die on my feet, not strapped to a table.

I've had so many surgeries, all I know is that we they turn the anesthesia on, I know nothing. Straight to sleep. You could shoot them, cut their throat, suffocate...it wouldn't matter.

Leave it to the government to overthink something that is so easily accomplished.

Franky I don't care about their pain...if they are being put to death just do it. But if you want the "humane" way, there are multiple easy methods of doing it.

[Swany00]

Originally Posted by bill_daniels

No love for the @onedef92-esque thread title? Damn. Rough crowd.

the big diff is he was a legend, you....you're just bill

[Torqaholic]

Probably cheaper to drown them in water.

[dvarapala]

The liberal news reports about this have been hilarious. Idiots wailing about "toxic gas" and how some people are afraid to be in the same room as the condemned prisoner because they might get poisoned by the nitrogen.

Imagine what these morons would do if they found out that Earth's atmosphere is 78% nitrogen!

[dvarapala]

Originally Posted by Onebadcad

Yeah, but, they say it took almost 30 minutes.

If that's true then the executioners ****ed up - probably used a mask that didn't fit tighly enough and let some oxygen from the room sneak through.

No doubt these are the same incompetent ****s would couldn't find a vein in the guy's arm after trying for 2 hours.

[VITE1]

.45 ACP to the back of the head. Cheap, painless and efficient.

[dvarapala]

Originally Posted by VITE1

.45 ACP to the back of the head. Cheap, painless and efficient.

Or use one of those big nailguns they use for cattle.

[VatorMan]

Originally Posted by Torqaholic

Probably cheaper to drown them in water.

lol-rig up a big assed barrel with a counter weighted floor-put a beer on a shelf over the floor. Just like a water mouse trap

[Vandelay Industries]

Originally Posted by VITE1

.45 ACP to the back of the head. Cheap, painless and efficient.

On the same day as sentencing.