The Supreme Court has rejected the last-minute plea of an Alabama death row inmate to stay his execution, bringing him closer to being put to death by an untested method: nitrogen gas. Kenneth Smith, convicted of murdering Elizabeth Sennett in 1988, had objected to the use of nitrogen hypoxia, citing concerns about the potential for botched procedures and violation of his constitutional rights.
Smith’s execution is scheduled for Thursday. The court order denying his application did not receive any public dissents from the justices. However, Smith’s lawyers still have a separate claim pending in federal court that could potentially halt the execution.
According to Smith’s legal team, nitrogen hypoxia has never been used as an execution method in the United States. The last instance of lethal gas execution was in 1999. The Supreme Court previously rejected an attempt to execute Smith through lethal injection in May of last year.
During the oral arguments, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall pointed out that Smith had previously expressed a preference for execution by lethal gas, making his current allegations inconsistent with his previous stance.
Nitrogen hypoxia works by depriving the inmate of oxygen, causing death. The state’s execution protocol involves fitting a mask to the inmate’s face and administering nitrogen gas until death. Oklahoma and Mississippi have also approved the use of nitrogen hypoxia as a method of execution.
Critics of this method, including Smith’s lawyers and death penalty opponents, have voiced concerns about potential risks such as leaving the inmate in a vegetative state or the possibility of choking on vomit. There are also concerns about the danger posed to others in the execution chamber in the event of a gas leak.
The Supreme Court, which currently has a 6-3 conservative majority, has historically been skeptical of last-minute stay requests from death row inmates. The court has also made it more challenging for prisoners to challenge the method of execution.
In a 2019 ruling, the Supreme Court rejected a Missouri inmate’s request to be executed by lethal gas instead of lethal injection due to a rare medical condition. The court stated that prisoners are not guaranteed a painless death.
It is important to note that death penalty proponents have criticized attorneys who file last-minute claims to delay executions, referring to it as a “guerrilla war against the death penalty.”
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