The United Nations on Wednesday joined a growing chorus calling for U.S. authorities to halt the planned execution of a man on Alabama’s death row by nitrogen hypoxia, with a panel of experts assembled by the international organization calling it “an untested method” that could result in “grave suffering.”
The four experts—Morris Tidball-Binz, Alice Edwards, Tlaeng Mofokeng, and Margaret Satterthwaite—appealed in a joint statement to both federal and state authorities, begging them to stop Kenneth Eugene Smith’s Jan. 25 execution. “We are concerned that nitrogen hypoxia would result in a painful and humiliating death,” said the experts, who are all independent monitors working as part of the Human Rights Council’s special procedures program.
The practice of using nitrogen hypoxia to execute a prisoner—essentially having them inhale pure nitrogen, starving them of oxygen until they die—was authorized as an alternative method by the Alabama State Legislature in 2018. Last year, the Alabama Supreme Court upheld its use in a 6-2 decision over Smith’s case.
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State Attorney General Steve Marshall applauded the ruling at the time. “Though the wait has been far too long, I am grateful that our talented capital litigators have nearly gotten this case to the finish line,” he tweeted.
Though it has also been approved in Oklahoma and Mississippi, nitrogen hypoxia has never actually been used to execute a person, as the experts pointed out, adding that there is no scientific evidence that the experience wouldn’t be tantamount to torture.
The experts warned that such “experimental executions” would likely violate the U.N.’s convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment.
Capital-punishment experts have also previously raised concerns that the gas could affect prison staff or spiritual advisers present in the death chamber, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Smith, 58, ended up on death row over his role in the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, a pastor’s wife. The jury who convicted him in 1996 voted 11-1 to recommend life without parole, according to AL.com, but a judge overrode the recommendation. Another man found guilty in the case, John Forrest Parker, was executed via lethal injection in 2010.
State authorities attempted to execute Smith by lethal injection last year, but had to abort it after Department of Corrections staff failed to find an intravenous line to deliver the cocktail of drugs. Smith is one of only two people alive in the U.S. to have survived a botched execution.
Smith’s lawyers have argued that gassing him in a second execution attempt would be unconstitutional, and that their client has not yet exhausted his appeals.
In November, the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama denounced the use of nitrogen hypoxia, with interim legal director Alison Mollman accusing the state of “rushing to put a man to death with an untested, unproven, and never-before-used method of execution.”
