Free Republic

@davidicke Authority is the 'moral high ground'? Wife of killer Kenneth Eugene Smith 'cried out' during his historic 22-minute-long nitrogen execution - which witness described as 'horrific' as he thrashed and 'convulsed' on gurney. Since I was a small kid, when capital punishment was still legal in the UK, I have felt it was sick and ridiculous to say killing is wrong and so we are killing you for killing. It's mentally deranged. But doing it this way means that those who sanctioned it should be certified.

Alabama's Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared the state to execute an inmate using nitrogen gas. The state's attorney general’s request for an execution warrant for Kenneth Eugene Smith was granted in a 6-2 decision by an all-Republican court. Last year, the Alabama Department of Corrections called off the execution of Smith when the people responsible for connecting two intravenous lines to him for lethal injection could not do so. While the ruling moves the state closer to becoming the first to attempt execution with nitrogen gas, there is likely to be additional legal dispute on the matter. Alabama joins Oklahoma...

Alabama may become the first state to execute a prisoner by making him breathe pure nitrogen, a death penalty method that is authorized by three states but has never been used. The office of Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall asked the state Supreme Court in a court filing on Friday to set an execution date for 58-year-old death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith. The filing revealed Alabama intends to put him to death by nitrogen hypoxia. Smith was one of two men convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of a preacher’s wife. “It is a travesty that Kenneth Smith has...

A murderer who killed a preacher's wife in 1988 is set to become the first death row inmate in America to be executed with nitrogen. Alabama officials want to put Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, to death by nitrogen hypoxia - forcing him to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen and causing them to die. Several states have authorized the method, which is said to be painless, but it has still never been used. Critics have said authorities would be 'experimenting with a never before used method - but even Smith has said he would prefer death by nitrogen to...

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 nose and mouth would be covered by a mask, and nitrogen...