Posted on 01/31/2024 12:15:51 AM PST by Morgana
On Thursday, January 25th, an inmate named Kenneth Smith was executed in Alabama using a new execution method: death by nitrogen hypoxia. And a notable euthanasia advocate has condemned it, but only because he claims the execution method is “bad publicity” for the assisted death movement.
Smith had previously undergone an attempted execution in November of 2022, but the attempts at lethal injection failed. Smith’s legal team claimed that attempting to execute him for a second time would equal cruel and unusual punishment, but the day before the execution, the Supreme Court refused to intervene, denying an appeal. Three of the Supreme Court justices dissented, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor writing, “Having failed to kill Smith on its first attempt, Alabama has selected him as its ‘guinea pig’ to test a method of execution never attempted before. The world is watching.”
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ravina Shamdasani, wrote ahead of the execution that it should be halted, as using “a novel and untested method” would equal “torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under international human rights law.”
“It’s not that nitrogen gas won’t kill you,” Dr. Joel Zivot, an associate professor of anesthesiology and surgery at Emory University, told CNN. “But will it kill you in a way that would comport with the constitutional requirement that it not be cruel and it not be torture?”
Now that Smith’s execution has been committed, it appears that his death was, in fact, torturous. Witnesses present for the execution reported a horrific scene: Smith was fitted with a full face mask, and though the nitrogen was said to cause unconsciousness within seconds, Smith remained conscious for several minutes, with the execution overall taking 22 minutes. Smith’s convulsions were reportedly so violent that the entire gurney was shaking, while Smith’s spiritual advisor Rev. Jeff Hood told the Guardian that even the prison officials “were visibly surprised at how bad this thing went.”
Marty Roney, a reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser, wrote:
7:57 p.m.
A prisons staff member inside the death chamber approached Smith and checked the seal of the mask. The nitrogen apparently began flowing.
7:57 to 8:01 p.m.
Smith writhed and convulsed on the gurney. He appeared to be fully conscious when the gas began to flow. He took deep breaths, his body shaking violently with his eyes rolling in the back of his head. Hood, standing about 15 feet away, made the sign of the cross several times. Smith clenched his fists, his legs shook under the tightly tucked-in white sheet that covered him from his neck down. He seemed to be gasping for air. The gurney shook several times during this time. Hood removed his eyeglasses and wiped away tears.
8:02 p.m.
Smith appeared to lose consciousness. His chest remained still for about 20 seconds then he took several large gasps for air. There appeared to be saliva or tears on the inside of the facemask. A female witness for Smith sobbed.
8:06 p.m.
Smith’s gasping appeared to slow down.
8:07 p.m.
Smith appeared to take his last breath.
8:15 p.m.
The curtains to the witness room were closed.
Though the curtains had been closed, Smith had not yet been pronounced dead, which happened ten minutes later.
Another reporter, Lee Hedgepeth, witnessed the execution firsthand, and said he was shocked at how violent it was. “I’ve been to four previous executions and I’ve never seen a condemned inmate thrash in the way that Kenneth Smith reacted to the nitrogen gas,” he told BBC’s Newsday. “Kenny just began to gasp for air repeatedly and the execution took about 25 minutes total.”
Yet Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm downplayed what happened, saying “nothing was out of the ordinary from what we were expecting.” Hamm also tried to claim the violent convulsions were due to Smith struggling against his restraints. The state of Alabama had claimed that death by nitrogen hypoxia would be painless and quick — yet Smith’s execution casts serious doubt on that claim.
And it’s for that exact reason that Philip Nitschke, a notorious euthanasia advocate, is angry.
Nitrogen hypoxia kills a person by depriving their body of the oxygen necessary to live, causing asphyxiation and death; the person is essentially suffocated. It’s an assisted death method frequently championed by Nitschke — which is why he was so adamantly opposed to Smith’s execution; it would show the world firsthand what death by euthanasia is actually like.
In a statement, Nitschke complained that Smith’s execution will set the ‘right to die’ movement back 20 years.
“Nitrogen hypoxia has been advocated for over 15 years by the right to die movement as an effective way to obtain a quick, peaceful and reliable Do It Yourself (DIY) death,” he said. “Elderly people around the world are now asking whether they should reconsider their plan to use this method and asking where the truth lies. They want to know why the Alabama ‘experiment’ has prompted such negative reaction? What has been missed in the discussion is that there is a huge difference between when a person immerses him/herself in an oxygen-free environment using an open ‘Exit bag’ because they want to die, and the planned closed system of the facemask that Alabama wants to use’. In the Alabama experiment, the condemned prisoner has a mask forcibly strapped to their face and is then expected to cooperate in their own death!”
So for Nitschke, it is only the use of a bag that makes a difference… completely ignoring the fact that the person is still being suffocated until they die, regardless of how the nitrogen hypoxia is carried out. Nevertheless, Nitschke’s statement insists that nitrogen hypoxia is a “highly effective, peaceful and reliable method of elective death.”
Many of the drugs used in assisted suicide and euthanasia are the same as the drugs used in executions, and they are much more violent than they seem; the patient is given a paralytic first, so they cannot respond as they die, giving the appearance of a peaceful death. Yet in actuality, the drugs often cause pulmonary edema, in which the patient essentially drowns in their own bodily fluids. With nitrogen hypoxia, the person is suffocated. Despite the “quick and painless” narrative, these methods of dying are far more gruesome than is let on.
No way we can know, but knowing what we do about hypoxia and death by nitrogen, this guy’s antics don’t fit.
I think it’s a good possibility he threw a fit to make it look bad because he was so against it. “I’ll throw a fit and they will never know I’m doing this - this is my final act I can do to protest the procedure. So I’ll give it all I can to look bad.”
He succeeded.
And no one knows what really happened.
Could be the ultimate lie.......on his way out......
Why don’t they use fentanyl? It is quite deadly and there seems to be an abundance of it streaming across the border. People who OD on it just drift away with the needle still in their arm. Fentanyl is also used by anesthetists in hospitals. It works really well.
Same here. I was told to count backward from 20...I remember saying 20, 19, 18...and then I woke up in recovery!
I work in construction safety...even worked in industrial plants for a few years. We discuss nitrogen safety as it is used as a purging gas in pipelines, tanks, etc...
There have been accidental deaths attributed to Nitrogen seeping into confined spaces. The people simply fell asleep, never to wake. They did not convulse, thrash, gag, or anything else. They were working and then simply dropped. And if they were not extracted in SECONDS, they probably died!
About two full breaths of nitrogen will result in unconsciousness - so any thrashing, etc...was not “painful”...the guy was completely unaware of the events after those first couple of breaths - PERIOD!!
Firing squad should be used. Quick cheap and sure.
The witnesses lied through their teeth. They are all anti-death penalty stooges and went off the same script.
Dude held his breath and thrashed. He held it quite awhile. Finally he was forced to breath it in, and lost consciousness in seconds.
Then died.
THAT’S what happens when you breath pure Nitrogen in.
Holding your breath a long time is painful. But it’s not painful, at all, from lack of Oxygen. It’s painful from the build up of CO2 in your blood, which can’t be released because you stopped exhaling. The buildup of CO2 in your blood changes the pH, lowers it, and that makes your body go, Woah!! What’s happening? This hurts!!
It’s the buildup of carbonic acid in your blood from CO2 that sux. Breathing out then in relieves the pain. Do it in pure nitrogen and the pain is gone instantly. CO2 is eliminated, and you basically pass out painlessly in moments. The passout is from lack of Oxygen, and it’s painless.
Yes, I’ve experienced it.
It’s the easiest way to croak, if you have to go that route.
(Pure CO, Carbon Monoxide, is even more one-way. Nitrogen suffocation can be reversed if you stop it within around 6-10 minutes. But 4 breaths of pure CO and you’re dead, period, even if you don’t know it yet. Can’t be reversed.)
There seems to be an easy answer for this issue.
Common paralytics used for surgery include:
Succinylcholine
Rocuronium
Vecuronium
Mivacurium
Atracurium
Cisatracurium
so just give them any one of these in combination with the gas, and problem solved.
YEP!!
I had some surgery in November. They had me shift over from the gurney to the operating table, and the next moment (to me) I was waking up in recovery. No counting backward beforehand and no sense of elapsed time. I don’t know what anesthetic drug they used, but it worked fine.
Yep, he clearly played it up as his last act of defiance. He held his breath for as long as he could and did lots of thrashing around to create maximum ghastliness. I wouldn’t be surprised if he managed to get some air past the seal of the facemask with all his contortions. It’s incredible that the Alabama prison officials didn’t foresee what he’d do. They seem to have designed the procedure for a compliant participant which is the opposite of what he was. Just incredible ineptitude on their part IMO.
Nice try.
I too have had a recent colonoscopy and whatever they used, I was “out” in seconds. However, the drug was given by IV and starting an IV has been the whole problem with lethal injection as a means of capital punishment. Nitrogen should have rendered him unconscious immediately and it may have been the way it was administered or the inmate holding his breath that caused the mess. Industrial accidents with nitrogen seem to have caused the victims to rapidly lose consciousness.
I put my pets down with a 38 to the back of the head and it is quick, as painless as possible as a death can be and as merciful as a death can be.
It is only the fear of death that is painful and a pet knows no fear as they trust that their owner will do the thing that is best for them, and I believe that I always have.
They could have gassed him with air, and his antics would have been revealed as faked.
Oh, it was a technician’s mistake, they turned the wrong valve (DIE employee).
And if he thrashed enough, he might have offed himself anyway.
Freon will also work. It is a powerful anesthetic and many of our anesthetic gases used in surgery have a similar chemical structure.
Fentanyl will work. However, the drug companies will not sell it for this purpose. It is a pretty simple chemical synthesis. A state could make their own in a lab for this use.
Hydrogen sulfide gas works much in the same manner as carbon monoxide.
Firing squad works, but it is unsightly.
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