By Jerald Jimenez
Aug 27, 2023, 23:42 PM EDT
An Alabama man could become the first US inmate to be executed by breathing pure nitrogen, a method that has been authorized in three states but not used.
The Alabama Attorney General’s office asked the state Supreme Court in a court filing Friday to set an execution date for Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, who is on death row. The filing specified that Alabama intends to execute him by nitrogen hypoxia.
The defendant was one of the men convicted of the murder for hire of a preacher’s wife in 1988.
“It is a farce that Kenneth Smith was able to avoid his death sentence for nearly 35 years after being convicted of the heinous murder-for-hire of an innocent woman, Elizabeth Sennett,” Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement.
Nitrogen hypoxia is generated by forcing the inmate to breathe only hydrogen, which deprives them of oxygen and causes death. The air inhaled by people is 78% nitrogen, but it is harmless when inhaled with oxygen.
In 2018, Alabama authorized nitrogen hypoxia in 2018 during a shortage of drugs used to perform lethal injections, but the state has not used the method to carry out a death sentence. The other states to authorize it as a method of execution are Oklahoma and Mississippi.
The state of Alabama attempted to execute Smith by lethal injection last year, but was unsuccessful due to problems inserting an IV into his veins, the second time to do so in two months and the third time since 2018.
One day after Smith’s botched execution, Republican Governor Kay Ivey announced that executions would be suspended to allow for an internal review of lethal injection procedures.
The state has worked to develop a nitrogen hypoxia execution method for years, but has not revealed details about its plans.
Smith was named one of two men paid $1,000 to kill Elizabeth Sennett in 1988 on behalf of her husband, Charles Sennett, who was in debt and wanted insurance money.
Sennett’s husband, who was a church pastor, committed suicide when the investigation began considering him as a possible suspect, according to court documents. The other man who received $1,000 to kill Elizabeth was executed in 2010.
With information from the New York Post