An Alabama man is set to be the first ever person executed via a new method, nitrogen gas, on Thursday.
Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, was sentenced to death for his alleged role in the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Sennett. Her husband, Charles Sennett, allegedly hired someone — who, in turn, hired two men, including Smith — to kill his wife and make it look like a burglary gone wrong.
Smith was to be executed in November 2022 via lethal injection, but, despite multiple attempts, officials were not able to insert an intravenous line to administer the drugs before the death warrant expired.
However, medical and legal experts told ABC News that nitrogen gas as a method for execution is untested and there’s no evidence the method will be any more humane or painless than lethal injection.
“I’ve never heard anyone say, ‘We’ve got this new method of execution. We’ve looked at it carefully. We know that this method of execution will cause a death that will not be cruel. Here’s the evidence,'” Dr. Joel Zivot, an associate professor in the department of anesthesiology at Emory University School of Medicine, told ABC News. “That’s what needed to be said. No one has said that.”
abcnews.go.com/Health/alabama-prepares-1st-nitrogen-gas-execution/story?id=106605519
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