On January 25, the United States will try a new method of executing a convicted person (5 photos)

The criminal is executed using nitrogen.





On January 25, the US state of Alabama plans to execute 58-year-old Kenneth Eugene Smith.

He was convicted of participating in the 1988 contract killing of Alabama preacher Charles Sennett Sr.'s wife, Elizabeth. The husband of the deceased paid Smith and his accomplice John Forrest Parker $1 thousand each. The husband wanted his wife dead, because. I hoped after that to get insurance and pay off my debts. As a result, the unfortunate woman was stabbed to death (she was stabbed about a dozen times), the preacher, becoming a suspect, committed suicide, and Parker was executed in 2010.



Elizabeth Sennett, 45, was murdered on March 18, 1988.

Only Smith remained, who was also sentenced to execution. Although the jury recommended life imprisonment by a vote of 11 to 1, the judge rejected the recommendation and decided on a harsher sentence.



Kenneth Eugene Smith

In 2022, Smith has already circumvented death by injection. The execution did not take place, because the prisoner did not have a vein for injecting poison. As a result, the execution was postponed and is now scheduled to take place on January 25.

They want to execute Smith in a new way - by inhaling pure nitrogen. And although this method of execution is officially permitted in three US states (Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Alabama, among others), it has never been used in practice and, in essence, is experimental.

It is assumed that a prisoner inhaling pure nitrogen will lose consciousness within a few seconds and die within a few minutes. Supporters of this method of execution claim that it is painless, but their opponents insist that since no one has previously conducted such experiments, it is reckless to declare painlessness.



The prisoner, with the help of lawyers, filed a petition to cancel the execution using nitrogen, but was refused.

Smith's lawyers insist that nitrogen hypoxia is an acceptable method of euthanasia for pigs, but not for other mammals. Additionally, by wearing a breathing mask, the prisoner would be deprived of the opportunity to pray out loud or make a final statement to witnesses in his final moments of life. However, the Alabama prosecutor said that Smith's fears were speculative, and, in the end, some concessions were accepted: in particular, the priest would be able to enter the chamber before the execution and pray with Smith.



Of course, Smith’s lawyers hope that their client will somehow miraculously be lucky this time, but the relatives of the deceased woman “have been waiting 35 years to see justice,” the Alabama prosecutor wrote on social networks.