Thursday night, Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, was put to death by breathing pure nitrogen gas while wearing a face mask.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary for the White House, stated on Friday that the Biden administration is “deeply troubled” by the Alabama man’s experimental execution by nitrogen gas and voiced reservations over the death sentence.
Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, was put to death on Thursday night by breathing pure nitrogen gas via a face mask. This is the first time that the controversial form of capital punishment—which deprives the victim of oxygen—was applied in the United States. The Supreme Court denied a last-minute plea to stop the death penalty from being applied in this instance, leading to criticism of the execution technique as cruel and painful.
According to Jean-Pierre, “the reports of Kenneth Smith and his death last night obviously is very troubling,” the press conference was held with media. “It is very troubling to us as an administration, it is very troubling to us here at the White House.”
Since the introduction of lethal injection, which is currently the most popular means of carrying out the death penalty, in 1982, this was the first time that a new method of execution had been utilized in the United States.
Smith seemed to be conscious for a few minutes after the execution, which lasted roughly twenty-two minutes. He seemed to thrash and tremble on the gurney for at least two minutes, occasionally tugging against the straps. This was followed by several minutes of labored breathing until his breathing stopped.
“The president has long said and has had deep deep concerns with how the death penalty is implemented and whether it is consistent … with our values,” she said. We are therefore extremely disturbed by Kenneth Smith’s passing. Thus, it is simply unsettling to learn.”
Smith faced the death penalty for the 1988 murder-for-hire stabbing death of a preacher’s wife, Elizabeth Sennett, who was found dead in the home she shared with her husband in Colbert County. Prosecutors said Smith was one of two men who were each paid $1,000 to kill Sennett on behalf of her husband, who was in huge debt and wanted to collect insurance money.
Her husband, Charles Sennett Sr., killed himself when the investigation began looking at him as a possible suspect. The other man convicted in the killing was executed in 2010.
Alabama attempted to execute Smith by lethal injection in 2022 but failed to carry it out because of issues with inserting an IV into his veins, the second time in two months and the third since 2018 that the state was unsuccessful in putting an inmate to death.
The day following Smith’s botched execution, Republican governor Kay Ivey declared that executions would be suspended to enable an internal review of the lethal injection protocols. Last July, Alabama begun using lethal injections.
Smith claimed that his death sentence should not be carried out due to the possibility that the state would make a mistake after the first failed effort to execute him in his last-minute petition to the Supreme Court on Thursday to halt his execution. The appeal was denied by the court, although Justice Sonia Sotomayor stated in a dissenting opinion that Smith was being used as a “guinea pig” by Alabama to test a novel execution technique.
Smith’s experimental execution was denounced by the European Union and the United Nations.
At a UN briefing, Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesman for the Human Rights Office, stated, “He was writhing and clearly suffering.” “Let’s just abolish the death penalty instead of searching for new, unproven ways to execute people. This is out of date and doesn’t belong in the twenty-first century.”
Before, the United Nations Human Rights Office issued a warning, stating that it thought the death penalty “could breach the prohibition on torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
The European Union said in a statement Friday that nitrogen hypoxia was “particularly cruel and unusual punishment” and urged states to “move toward abolition, in line with the worldwide trend.”
In 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland imposed a moratorium on the federal death penalty, a move that President Biden supports.
“[Smith’s execution] underscores why the president supports the attorney general’s moratorium on the federal death penalty, pending review of the policies and procedures governing its use,” Jean-Pierre stated on Friday.
Federal prosecutors, however, announced earlier this month that they will pursue the death sentence against the gunman who shot and killed ten Black people at a Buffalo, New York grocery store in May 2022, despite the moratorium.
“The President always has had deep concerns with how the death penalty is implemented,” Jean-Pierre stated. “He always has.”
