In the US, a death row inmate survived a lethal injection. Now they want to execute him with nitrogen.
The authorities of the US state of Alabama want to re-execute convicted Kenneth Smith, who survived in November 2022 after a lethal injection, reports The Guardian.
Smith, 58, was found guilty of a murder committed back in 1988 and was sentenced to death by a judge. However, last year the convict was unsuccessfully given a lethal injection.
Prison doctors spent hours unsuccessfully trying to find a vein in the body to inject the deadly substance. Handcuffed, Smith was led to the execution chamber and tightly tied to burdens, after which he was inflicted with unbearable pain for hours, equivalent, according to his lawyers, to torture.
Now Alabama authorities want to carry out the death penalty, but using an experimental method never before used in the penitentiary system.
The prisoner will be forced to breathe pure nitrogen. Nitrogen hypoxia in a few minutes should reduce the level of oxygen in the brain and other vital organs of a person, which will lead to death by suffocation.
The Attorney General petitioned the state Supreme Court to set a new execution date for Smith, using a previously unused method.
Death penalty experts denounced this intention, stating that, in effect, an experiment would be carried out on the condemned.
“Alabama has already tortured Kenneth Smith once during a failed assassination attempt. It is extremely reckless and cruel to try to do it again using an untested method of execution that can cause terrible suffering,” said Maya Foa, executive director of the human rights group Reprieve.
Recall that in Singapore for the first time in the last 20 years, a woman was executed. The country suspended executions during the pandemic. Prior to that, they were held on average once a month.
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