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Alabama inmate Kenneth

Smith executed with nitrogen
gas, marking the emergence
of a wholly new method of
capital punishment
By Dakin Andone, Isabel Rosales and Christina
Maxouris, CNN
Updated 12:47 AM EST, Fri January 26, 2024

Alabama Department of Corrections commissioner …

02:01 - Source: CNN

Alabama Department of Corrections commissioner comments

on death row inmate's reported shaking before death

Atmore, Alabama (CNN) — Alabama on

Thursday night executed Kenneth Smith, the
first death row inmate known to die by nitrogen
gas, marking the emergence of a wholly
new method of execution in the United
States that experts have said could lead to
excessive pain or even torture.

Smith, who was sentenced to death for his role

in a 1988 murder for hire, had survived the
state’s initial attempt to execute him by lethal
injection in 2022. Earlier Thursday, the US
Supreme Court denied his last-minute appeal to
halt the execution, after declining the same
request on Wednesday.

Smith’s time of death was 8:25 p.m. local time,

o\cials announced. In a news conference after
the execution, Alabama Department of
Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said
nitrogen was running for about 15 minutes.

In a joint report, witnesses from the media said

Smith made a lengthy statement before he died,
saying, “Tonight Alabama caused humanity to
take a step backward,” and adding, “I’m leaving
with love, peace and light, thank you for
supporting me, love all of you.”

Smith appeared conscious for “several minutes

into the execution,” and for two minutes after
that, he “shook and writhed on a gurney,”
according to the media witness report. That
was followed by several minutes of deep
breathing before his breath began slowing “until
it was no longer perceptible for media
witnesses.”

When asked at the news conference about

Smith shaking during the start of the execution,
Hamm said Smith appeared to be holding his
breath “for as long as he could” and may have
also “struggled against his restraints.”

“There was some involuntary movement and

some agonal breathing, so that was all
expected and is in the side e`ects that we’ve
seen and researched on nitrogen hypoxia,”
Hamm added. “So nothing was out of the
ordinary of what we were expecting.” Agonal
breathing is usually described as a kind of
gasping seen in people who are dying.

Another witness, Smith’s spiritual adviser who’d

previously expressed concern that the method
could be inhumane, described the death in
more graphic terms, saying it was “the most
horrible thing I’ve ever seen.”

Smith, wearing a mask through which the

nitrogen was administered, convulsed when the
gas was turned on, “popped up on the gurney”
repeatedly, and gasped and heaved, the Rev.
Je` Hood said.

“An unbelievable evil was unleashed tonight,”

Hood said.

One of the sons of the victim, Elizabeth Sennett,

said Smith’s death got justice for his mother.

“Nothing happened here today that’s going to

bring mom back. Nothing,” Mike Sennett said at
the news conference. “We’re glad this day is
over. All three of the people involved in this case
years ago, we have forgiven them.”

“Kenneth Smith made some bad decisions 35

years ago, and his debt was paid tonight,” he
said.

In a statement, Smith’s legal team said they

were “deeply saddened” by his death, adding
he had found and “sincerely practiced his faith,”
had become sober and helped other inmates
achieve sobriety, and had earned an associate’s
degree.

“Nothing can undo the tragic consequences of

the actions for which he was convicted,
including the pain of the Sennett family and
friends. Kenny’s life, however, should be
considered in its full context,” the statement
added.

Little is known about how the method of

execution, known as nitrogen hypoxia, was
carried out because the state’s published
protocol bears redactions experts say shield key
details from public scrutiny. The state, in court
records, indicated the redactions were made to
maintain security and it believes death by
nitrogen gas to be “perhaps the most humane
method of execution ever devised.”

Alabama plans the first nitrogen

gas execution this week in largely
secret process experts say raises
concerns about cruelty

But Smith and his team were skeptical. “The

eyes of the world are on this impending moral
apocalypse,” the inmate and his spiritual
adviser, Hood, said midday Thursday in a joint
statement. “Our prayer is that people will not
turn their heads. We simply cannot normalize
the su`ocation of each other.”

Elizabeth Sennett’s sons told CNN earlier

Thursday they felt it was time for Smith’s
sentence to be carried out, adding they believed
their mother was forgotten because of the new
execution method.

“It seems like a lot of the focus today is on

Smith and his nitrogen, whatever, process,”
Mike Sennett said. “And that’s kind of upset us
a little bit.”

“What’s going on is overshadowing what’s

actually happened,” his brother, Chuck Sennett,
said. “He’s gotta pay the price for what he done
to our mother,” who should be remembered “as
a loving, caring woman.” The two brothers were
in their 20s when their mother was killed.

Before his execution, Smith accepted a final

meal of steak, hashbrowns and eggs, according
to information released by the Alabama
Department of Corrections.

Only 3 states have approved nitrogen for

executions

The US Supreme Court first declined to

intervene in Smith’s case on Wednesday after
his attorneys tried to argue a second execution
attempt would violate the US Constitution’s
protection against cruel and unusual
punishment.

A separate federal appeals court ruling on

Wednesday evening also declined to halt the
execution. Smith’s team had again appealed
Thursday morning to the Supreme Court.

State o\cials on Wednesday welcomed the

high court’s rejection of Smith’s earlier request,
framing it as an “attempt to bar the State from
executing him by any method at all,” Attorney
General Steve Marshall said in a statement.

Alabama “remains confident that the execution,

and long-awaited justice, will proceed as
planned,” he said.

Still, Smith’s advocates and critics of the state

feared the nitrogen gas execution could go
awry, pointing to its novel nature, questions
around its shrouded protocol and Alabama’s
recent struggles to carry out lethal injections.

In 2022 alone, the state carried out or

attempted three executions in a row that critics
deemed “botches,” meaning they deviated from
the stated protocol. In two of the cases, the
inmates – including Smith – survived as o\cials
called o` the executions because they could
not set an intravenous line used to deliver the
fatal drugs before the death warrants expired.

Alabama on Thursday used nitrogen hypoxia, a

method it adopted in 2018. It is one of just three
states, along with Oklahoma and Mississippi,
that has approved the use of nitrogen for
executions, though no other state has used it
and only Alabama has a protocol.

In theory, the method involves replacing the air

breathed by an inmate with 100% nitrogen,
depriving the body of oxygen. Its proponents
contend the process will be painless, citing
nitrogen’s role in deadly industrial accidents or
suicides.

Others are skeptical, including a group of United

Nations experts who this month voiced concern
a nitrogen gas execution will “result in a painful
and humiliating death,” with no scientific
evidence to the contrary.

Courtesy Rev. Je` Hood

Kenneth Smith, left, poses Monday with his spiritual adviser, the
Rev. Je` Hood.

“It’s lunacy, absolute lunacy,” Smith’s spiritual

adviser said before the execution.

“The process, obviously, is designed to execute

Kenneth Smith,” Hood told CNN. “But the way
that they’re constructing this, the way that
they’re doing it, the way that they’re being
silent, the way that they’re holding back
information, yes, it’s incredibly concerning. And
should be incredibly concerning for everybody
in the room.”

Apart from the execution method, Smith’s life

should be spared based on the previous, failed
attempt to put him to death, said the founder
and director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a
non-profit opposed to excessive criminal
punishment that advocates on behalf of death
row inmates. The group has assisted Smith’s
attorneys in the case.

“Since that time, we’ve been arguing that the

state doesn’t have the competency to carry out
these executions,” Bryan Stevenson told CNN on
Thursday. “They switched the method, and now
they’re saying they have the skill to carry out a
method that’s untested and never been used
before.”

Smith’s jury voted 11-1 for life sentence

Smith was convicted and sentenced to death

for the murder of Sennett, whose husband,
Charles, was having an a`air and had taken out
an insurance policy on his wife, according to
court records.

What happens during a typical

three-drug lethal injection

Charles Sennett recruited a man who recruited

two others, including Smith, and agreed to pay
each $1,000 to kill his wife and make it look like
she died in a burglary, the records show. The
men carried out the killing as planned in March
1988, and Smith took from the Sennett home a
VCR player that he stored in his own home.

Charles Sennett killed himself a week after the

murder, records state, as the investigation’s
focus turned to him. Smith was ultimately
arrested after authorities, based on an
anonymous tip, searched his home and found
the VCR player.

Smith was convicted and sentenced to die, but

an appeals court overturned the initial outcome
and ordered a new trial. He was again convicted
in the retrial, but this time his jury voted 11-1 for
a sentence of life in prison without the
possibility of parole.

The judge in Smith’s second trial, however,

essentially vetoed the jury’s vote and sentenced
the defendant to death – a practice known as
judicial override that’s since been repealed in
Alabama.

CNN’s Devan Cole, Chris Youd, Olivia LaBorde,

Jamiel Lynch and Alta Spells contributed to this
report.

View on CNN

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