Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey set the execution date for an inmate who’s now selecting to die by nitrogen hypoxia after surviving a deadly injection try final 12 months.
In a letter to Alabama Division of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm, Ivey mentioned she is setting a thirty-hour time-frame for the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith starting at midnight on Jan. 25, 2024.
The DOC can have till 6 a.m. to hold out the execution. The Alabama Supreme Courtroom gave the state the go forward final Thursday in a 6-2 choice after Legal professional Basic Steve Marshall requested an execution warrant for Smith.
He was scheduled to be executed on Nov. 17, 2022, nevertheless it was referred to as off when the executioners struggled to attach two intravenous traces to him for deadly injection.
ALABAMA CLEARED TO BECOME FIRST STATE TO EXECUTE INMATE WITH NITROGEN GAS: COURT
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey mentioned Wednesday the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith can be allowed to start on Jan. 25, 2024. (AP Photograph/Vasha Hunt)
Smith’s January execution will mark the primary time a state makes use of the nitrogen hypoxia methodology, and authorized dispute is anticipated to ramp up because the date attracts close to. Oklahoma and Mississippi are the one different states licensed to make use of nitrogen gasoline for an execution, however neither state has used the tactic but.
Underneath the proposed methodology, the inmate could be disadvantaged of oxygen and compelled to breathe solely nitrogen. Whereas proponents of the brand new methodology have theorized that it might be painless, opponents have likened it to human experimentation.
His attorneys have argued in opposition to the tactic and requested the court docket to reject the execution request, describing it as “experimental.”
“The state seeks to make Mr. Smith the take a look at topic for the primary ever tried execution by an untested and solely just lately launched protocol for executing condemned individuals by the novel methodology of nitrogen hypoxia,” Smith’s attorneys wrote in a September court docket submitting.
US SUPREME COURT SIDES WITH ALABAMA INMATE WHO SEEKS TO DIE BY NITROGEN HYPOXIA
Kenneth Eugene Smith would be the first inmate to die by nitrogen hypoxia after surviving a deadly injection execution try in Novemebr 2022. (Alabama Division of Corrections through AP)
Smith was sentenced to loss of life for the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of Elizabeth Sennett, whose pastor husband sought to have her murdered in an effort to repay money owed with life insurance coverage cash. He was additionally concerned in an extramarital affair.
“His scheme was to have his spouse murdered, which might allow him—in a single cowardly fell swoop—to flee each his monetary obligations and his marital vows,” Marshall mentioned of Westside Church of Christ pastor Rev. Charles Sennett.
Smith and his pal John Parker, who was executed in 2010, have been each paid $1,000 to hold out the plan. The 2 males ambushed her and punched, beat, bludgeoned and stabbed her to loss of life with a six-inch knife. Marshall mentioned she was stabbed eight occasions within the chest and twice within the neck.
Kenneth Eugene Smith was sentenced to loss of life for the 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of Elizabeth Stennett and is jailed at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. (AP Photograph/Jay Reeves, File)
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Ivey concluded her letter to Hamm by saying she retains the authority to grant a reprieve or commutation earlier than the execution is carried out, although she has “no present plans to grant clemency on this case.”
Fox Information Digital’s Pilar Arias contributed to this report.
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