After SCOTUS Rejected His Final Appeal, Alabama Executes Man With Nitrogen Gas
Tonight, Alabama caused humanity to take a step backwards," Kenneth Smith said in his final statement.
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The state’s notoriously incompetent executioners, who tried and failed to kill Smith via lethal injection in 2022, strapped the condemned man to a gurney and administered the nitrogen gas through a full-face mask. Smith was pronounced dead shortly before 8:30 pm after around four minutes of convulsions.
Wow. Sounds very humane. /s
“Tonight, Alabama caused humanity to take a step backwards,” Smith said in his final statement. “I’m leaving with love, peace, and light. Thank you for supporting me, love all of you.”
RIP, dude. Sorry we as a society couldn't help you. May the people who glibly signed your death warrant get what they deserve.
From one of the linked articles by a reporter in the room:
The gas appeared to start flowing at approximately 7:58 p.m. Smith visibly shook and writhed against the gurney for around two minutes. His arms thrashed against the restraints.
He breathed heavily, slightly gasping, for approximately seven more minutes. At one point, his wife cried out.
At 8:01 p.m., a correctional officer in the execution chamber leaned over Smith and examined his face, before stepping away and walking back to his post. Smith appeared to stop breathing at 8:08 p.m.
I've experienced hypoxia and found it very comfortable, if I had to choose a way to go there would be it, but that was at a high altitude and my brain had no idea what was happening (later edit: done properly with no carbon dioxide buildup, the brain should be unaware with nitrogen too - I suspect their untested mask was shit). This sounds barbaric.
They either botched the mask, or used a bottle of welding quality nitrogen laced with CO2.
The latter seems the most likely. The death penalty is full of negligence on this scale.
I promise you if people realized just how crooked the whole thing was, nobody would support it.
I was gonna say, on paper inert gas asphyxiation shouldn't be painful.
In execution, well... shit. Pun not originally intended, but I'm leaving it.
Pretty sure they've shown nitrogen asphyxiation on pigs hasn't caused any discernible stress or uncomfort. This execution not only taking this long but also being that stressful, and the facility's track record of fucking up executing this guy, makes me think some bullshit by Alabama happened to make this a painful death. Needs to be promptly and thoroughly investigated imo
Edit yea here's a link: mild content warning I guess, but it just shows a pig very briefly passing out and then coming to again: https://youtu.be/fPhH4nha4QA
Off topic FYI on YouTube links, the ?si=blahblah is used for tracking you and where you have shared the link. It works fine if you delete it. If you were to share with a timestamp you still need the ? but still not the si stuff.
Interesting, thanks for the info!
Imagine thinking that this is okay and also being against MAID.
I wasn't familiar with that term (Medical Assistance in Dying), learned something new. Agreed, it makes no sense at all.
I was a researcher for around twenty years and almost passed out leaning over an LN2 tank like an idiot looking for my samples once. No pain, just felt some tingling and rapidly fading consciousness. There was still a good amount of oxygen in the room since the alarms never went off. Just glad I started to fall backwards instead of into the tank.
I've also experienced nitrogen narcosis while deep diving, and that actually felt good.