Nitrogen asphyxiation is a technique that veterinarians reject, for ethical reasons, even for the euthanasia of mammals in general, except for pigs and under certain circumstances.
Alabama has everything ready for tomorrow – although for regulatory reasons it could be delayed to Friday – and the countdown has already begun for the execution of Kenneth Smith for nitrogen hypoxia. This inmate, demoted to the porcine underworld, is expected to be the first in the United States to experiment with this method of serving a capital sentence in the face of the lethal injection crisis.
If there is no last minute change, and the conservative judges who dominate the Supreme Court are not in favor of modifying this sentence, Smith will die like a pig.
In the literal sense, without euphemisms. In the face of law and order, the complaints of cruelty, human guinea pigs, macabre experiments or torture raised by a wide spectrum of personalities, from doctors to the United Nations, passing through the Vatican, are of little use.
“We are ready,” proclaimed Alabama Republican Governor Kay Ivey.
This 58-year-old convict, who has been on death row for 36 years, is called to make history again within this gloomy story that many describe as a state murder. Smith is part of an extremely select club, there are only two members (the other is Alana Eugene Miller), which includes those who have returned to life after an execution. And not by divine miracle, but by human disaster.
Smith has gone through all the protocols involved in carrying out this sentence, which also has its controversy. The jury found him guilty as one of the two perpetrators of the death of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett in 1988, at the request of her husband, a Protestant preacher. But they imposed a life sentence on her, unlike his colleague, the alleged material murderer.
The judge ordered, however, that Smith receive the death penalty, disregarding the jury's decision. This power of the magistrate is a measure that Alabama prohibited in 2017, although without retroactive effect, and that is not currently allowed in any other state in the country.
So on November 17, 2022, Smith had his last dinner, said goodbye to his mother and grandson and was placed in the death chamber of Holman Prison, a complex located in the town of Atmore. They tied him to the stretcher, where he remained for four hours after they couldn't find his veins to insert the syringe. Finally the executioners, who stitched him up with punctures, gave up and recognized his failure. Smith revived.
Alabama then used lethal injection, which is used in most territories where death sentences are still carried out. And they face identical problems of supplying substances, partly due to boycott, and difficulties in finding veins for puncture. Hence, they have opted for the latest turn to apply the final solution to which more and more states refuse and which has galvanized the movement that opposes these punishments. Oklahoma and Mississippi also approved nitrogen execution in 2018, but only Alabama has taken the step of putting it into practice.
Smith will be strapped to the stretcher again, this time with a mask over his face. He will have two minutes to say goodbye to him and the gas pumping into the mask will begin, at least for a quarter of an hour. State authorities stressed that he will supposedly enter a phase of unconsciousness and die due to lack of oxygen.
This theory only emerges from industrial accidents and suicide attempts, some carried out in Europe in a planned manner by health workers. But this is a protocol that has never been tested. Among other problems, experts pointed out that nitrogen can cause vomiting and be the cause of a very painful death by suffocation.
“I'm scared, I feel panic,” the inmate declared in responses sent to different media. His lawyer stressed that Smith does not fear death. What scares him is the way. The suffering.
