Murderer Set to be Executed by Nitrogen Gas

An Alabama murderer has been scheduled for execution between January 25 and 26 of 2024.  Kenneth Eugene Smith was twice convicted of murdering Elizabeth Sennett in March of 1988.  As reported by Devon M. Sayers and Emma Tucker of CNN, earlier this year Smith won a state Supreme Court decision accepting his request to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia rather than by lethal injection.  The article cites a description of the method by the Death Penalty Information Center (an opponent of capital punishment) as depriving the brain and body of oxygen, so the inmate would die by suffocation.  That is technically true, but a person breathing nitrogen gas simply goes to sleep painlessly.  Last year 717 Americans died similar deaths from accidentally breathing carbon monoxide.  Now Smith’s attorneys argue that nitrogen hypoxia is an untested experimental method which is unwarranted.

A decision by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals describes how Smith and two accomplices were hired in March of 1988 by Elizabeth Sennett’s husband to kill her. They were offered $1,000 each to commit the crime. They were told to make the murder look like a robbery gone bad. On March 18, Smith and the accomplices went to the Sennett’s rural home and when she allowed them in, they beat her with fireplace tools and fatally stabbed her eight times with a survival knife.  They then took a VCR and stereo from the house.  Police later found the VCR in Smith’s home. Smith gave police a full confession, which his attorneys later attempted to have excluded from trial. His statements to police were corroborated by the accomplices and other witnesses. Later, when police closed in on the victim’s husband, he committed suicide.  Smith’s first conviction was overturned by an Alabama court based on his claim that some jurors were excluded because of their race.  At his retrial, a second jury convicted Smith of the murder but recommended a life without parole sentence. The judge overruled the jury and imposed a death sentence.

CJLF has been recommending nitrogen gas for executions for over a decade.  Nitrogen gas makes up 78% of earth’s atmosphere and is available at hardware stores.  Several states have been forced to postpone executions due to the difficultly of getting the most effective lethal injection drugs, due to pressure on pharmaceutical companies by death penalty opponents. The U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged this in its 2015 Glossip v. Gross decision.  The adoption of nitrogen gas for executions would eliminate this problem.  Several other condemned Alabama murderers have requested it for their executions.