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| Alabama Has a Horrible New Way of Killing People on Death Row | Alabama Has a Horrible New Way of Killing People on Death Row |
| (about 16 hours later) | |
| After botching a series of executions by lethal injection, the State of Alabama is planning to use nitrogen gas to put condemned prisoners to death. The first execution will amount to a human experiment, because neither Alabama nor any other state has ever tried to kill people this way. | After botching a series of executions by lethal injection, the State of Alabama is planning to use nitrogen gas to put condemned prisoners to death. The first execution will amount to a human experiment, because neither Alabama nor any other state has ever tried to kill people this way. |
| Late last month, prison guards distributed the state’s new execution protocol to prisoners in solitary confinement on Alabama’s death row. One hundred and sixty men and five women await execution in Alabama. They would be secured to a gurney, their noses and mouths would be covered by masks, and nitrogen would be pumped into their lungs until they suffocate. | Late last month, prison guards distributed the state’s new execution protocol to prisoners in solitary confinement on Alabama’s death row. One hundred and sixty men and five women await execution in Alabama. They would be secured to a gurney, their noses and mouths would be covered by masks, and nitrogen would be pumped into their lungs until they suffocate. |
| Alabama is seeking to conduct the first such experiment on Kenneth Eugene Smith, who already survived a botched execution. Last November, Mr. Smith spent hours strapped to a lethal-injection gurney as the execution team needled around in several locations to insert two intravenous lines without success, before calling off the execution. It is hard to imagine a more ghastly ordeal than being marched back a second time to face the executioner and a new method of execution that has the possibility of unknown agony after decades in prison awaiting death. | Alabama is seeking to conduct the first such experiment on Kenneth Eugene Smith, who already survived a botched execution. Last November, Mr. Smith spent hours strapped to a lethal-injection gurney as the execution team needled around in several locations to insert two intravenous lines without success, before calling off the execution. It is hard to imagine a more ghastly ordeal than being marched back a second time to face the executioner and a new method of execution that has the possibility of unknown agony after decades in prison awaiting death. |
| Mr. Smith was convicted of the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, with the jury concluding that Ms. Sennett’s husband, a pastor, had paid Mr. Smith to kill her. Jurors voted 11 to 1 to sentence him to life in prison with no opportunity for parole. But a judge overruled the jury and ordered that Mr. Smith be executed. Alabama prohibited judges from overriding juries in future capital cases in 2017; it is no longer allowed anywhere in the United States. | Mr. Smith was convicted of the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, with the jury concluding that Ms. Sennett’s husband, a pastor, had paid Mr. Smith to kill her. Jurors voted 11 to 1 to sentence him to life in prison with no opportunity for parole. But a judge overruled the jury and ordered that Mr. Smith be executed. Alabama prohibited judges from overriding juries in future capital cases in 2017; it is no longer allowed anywhere in the United States. |