A federal judge who is weighing whether to allow the nation’s first execution by nitrogen hypoxia to go forward next month, urged Alabama on Thursday to change procedures so the inmate can pray and say his final words before the gas mask is placed on his face. U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker made the suggestion in a court order setting a Dec. 29 deadline to submit information before he rules on the inmate’s request to block the execution. Alabama is scheduled to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith on Jan. 25 in what would be the nation’s first execution using nitrogen gas.
Lawyers for the first inmate scheduled to be put to death with nitrogen gas argued in Monday court filings that Alabama is seeking to make him the “test case” for an experimental execution method and asked a federal judge to the block the January execution. Attorneys for Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, filed an amended lawsuit challenging the proposed new execution method as a potential violation of the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey this month set a Jan. 25 execution date for Smith using nitrogen hypoxia, an execution method that is authorized in Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma but that has never been used to put an inmate to death.
Alabama has set a January execution date for what would be the nation's first attempt to put an inmate to death using nitrogen gas. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Wednesday announced a Jan. 25 execution date for Kenneth Eugene Smith using the new method. Smith was one of two men convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of Elizabeth Sennett in northwestern Alabama.