Posted on 01/24/2024 5:50:38 PM PST by Morgana
Alabama will be allowed to put killer Kenneth Eugene Smith to death with nitrogen gas, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
The ruling refuses to block what would be the nation´s first execution by a new method since 1982.
Smith will be gassed to death with nitrogen hypoxia tomorrow at 6pm in Atmore, Alabama. It will be the first execution of its kind in the US and first known nitrogen execution in the world.
Earlier Wednesday, Smith had begged the Supreme court for mercy, citing experts concerns over the method despite previously requesting it and that it would violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments. They denied that appeal.
Now, it appears they will likely hear and rule on whether Alabama can use the new method of execution before Smith is set to be put to death.
Smith, 58, is one of two men convicted in the murder-for-hire slaying of a preacher´s wife in 1988 that rocked a small north Alabama community.
Prosecutors said he and the other man were each paid $1,000 to kill Elizabeth Sennett on behalf of her husband, who was deeply in debt and wanted to collect on insurance.
Sennett, 45, was found dead March 18, 1988, in her home in Colbert County with eight stab wounds in the chest and one on each side of her neck, according to the coroner.
Her husband, Charles Sennett Sr., killed himself when the investigation focused on him as a suspect, according to court documents.
Smith´s initial 1989 conviction was overturned on appeal, but he was retried and convicted again in 1996.
The jury recommended a life sentence by a vote of 11-1, but a judge overrode that and sentenced him to death. Alabama no longer lets judges override jury decisions in death penalty cases.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Cruel...meaning painful for the sake of inflicting pain. Not pain incidental to the method.
“btrathe deep tjr gatheting hloom”.
I worked at a semiconductor plant in the early
‘80s where that was a fixture clean room. The techs were required to wear masks fed with air. However, maintenance (cleaning) of the lines was done using nitrogen. Well, someone forgot to turn the air back on and two techs died of asphyxiation. They didn’t know what hit them, just passed out and died before anyone found them. That was just before the institution of the now standard lock out/tag out procedure.
No, the Constitution says “Cruel AND Unusual”. Parsing it the way lawyers do, it can be EITHER cruel OR unusual, just not BOTH.
It depends on the meaning of cruel and unusual...
Start with laughing gas and then switch it over to N2.
just get some fentanyl from the property room and be done with it...
So, in your opinion, is there any limit to the cruelty the constitution would permit, assuming, of course, that the punishment was not simultaneously unusual?
For example, would slow roasting the criminal over a bed of coals be permitted? Or driving bamboo shivs under their fingernails? Or burying them alive?
You, know, the kinds of things that were done to our POWs in Vietnam?
I know many folks speak rhetorically at times about the suffering they would like to inflict on heinous criminals, but in actuality, they would not do it.
So I’m asking, not rhetorically, do you think the constitution permits those kinds of punishments, as long as they are not simultaneously “unusual?” And if so, how would you define “unusual?”
I'm aware of a similar incident.
A tech was doing maintenance inside a very large chamber. The work required that he wear an air mask.
The tech had to be dragged out of the chamber twice after passing out. Only after the second time was it discovered that his air mask had been connected to the nitrogen source by accident. There was no report that the tech suffered any discomfort whatsoever.
I hope that best practice since then is to use different connectors for breathing apparatus so that such a mistake won't be repeated.
What’s wrong with hanging or firing squad. Stick with the basics.
How about a Fentanyl cocktail? It’s not like we can’t find any. Cheap too.
Most people are on death row for a very good reason and a cruel death is something they often meted out. Who’s whining about the victims?
Besides, I find it exceedingly hypocritical for the left to be such bleeding hearts over the fate of a death row inmate and worrying about him *suffering* when they advocate for the torturous butchering of babies in the womb.
Who determines what is cruel punishment? Apparently juries found parties guilty and those parties were given the death penalty. Are jurors guilty of violating the US Constitution? If that was true, it would be OFF the table, wouldn’t it?
On death sentences, what manner would be acceptable under the Constitution? What would NOT be considered cruel punishment?
Kind of ironic, isn’t it? Liberals do “ironic” and “hypocritical” very well....
I suggest stoning.
Anyone who opposes Nitrogen as a method of execution is simply opposed to the death penalty but isn’t brave enough to say so.
OSHA should submit their regulations regarding the industrial use of Nitrogen as an amicus brief. "silent killer" is correct. You don't have any idea that you are dying.
I support the death penalty. My question wasn’t intended to argue against it. I do not, however, support a “cruel” method of execution.
Dan W, however, seems to support “cruel” punishments, arguing that the constitution’s prohibition against “cruel and unusual” punishment allows punishments that are EITHER cruel OR unusual, but not punishments that are BOTH cruel AND unusual.
So, what is cruel? That’s hard to say. It’s kind of like pornography. I recognize it when I see it. I am not of the opinion that a nitrogen execution is cruel. But that wasn’t the question. The question was whether or not the constitution’s prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment” would generally allow punishments that are cruel, as long as they are not also unusual.
Note, too, that this constitutional prohibition does not apply only to capital punishment. If Dan W is correct that the Constitution does allow cruel punishments as long as they are not also unusual, then that is a flaw we should correct, or we will end up just like the Viet Cong. And that’s not a place I’m willing to go.
Parsing “unusual” and “cruel” seems unnecessary. I, too support the death penalty and in my opinion, waiting 30 years for a death sentence to be carried out is “cruel.” IMO death sentences need to be carried out immediately...Get it over with...
Reading more at the link, it dawned on me that this story was just recently on Dateline or one of those other shows - in just the past few days, maybe over the weekend. I’m addicted to those shows.
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