Judge allows Alabama to carry out nation’s first execution using nitrogen gas

A federal judge in Alabama ruled Wednesday to allow for an inmate to be executed using nitrogen gas in late January, making it the first execution in the United States to be carried out using the method. 

Kenneth Eugene Smith’s injunction was rejected by U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker on Wednesday. He is slated to be executed with nitrogen hypoxia on Jan. 25.

Smith’s lawyers are expected to appeal the judge’s decision and have called out the state for making his client a “test subject” for implementing an untested method, according to the Associated Press. 

The execution method has so far been authorized by three states, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Alabama, but the ultimate decision about whether the method can come to fruition might end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. 

In the Alabama case, the state plans to put a respirator-shape mask over Smith’s mouth and nose. Then it will swap breathable air with nitrogen, to cause death by the lack of oxygen. 

Smith, 58, who survived a prior execution attempt in 2022, was convicted for being involved in a 1988 murder-for-hire killing of a preacher’s wife in Colbert County. Both men were paid $1,000 each to kill Elizabeth Sennett on her husband’s behalf, according to prosecutors. John Forrest Parker, the other man convicted in the killing of Sennett was executed in 2010. 

Last week, the United Nations issued a warning over the planned execution of Smith, arguing that it is an “untested” method and that it would subject him to “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.” 

Those in support of the method argued that it would cause death to be painless. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall stated last year that the Sennett family waited “an unconscionable 35 years to see justice served.”

“With today’s order, Alabama is an important step closer to holding Kenneth Smith accountable for the heinous murder-for-hire slaying of an innocent woman, Elizabeth Sennett,” said Attorney General Marshall. “Smith has avoided his lawful death sentence for over 35 years, but the court’s rejection today of Smith’s speculative claims removes an obstacle to finally seeing justice done.”

Smith’s legal team countered, saying that the method violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishments.