Killer wins case to change execution

image

An inmate on death row has waged a legal struggle with his prison administration to change the method of execution after long years of waiting.

Kenneth Eugene Smith, 57, has been sentenced to death since 1996 after being charged with the hired murder of a woman in 1988 in Alabama, USA.

He was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on November 17, 2022, but he has sued the Alabama Department of Corrections, claiming that the state's recent history of failed executions using lethal injection means he is likely to face cruel and unusual punishment.

Indeed, prison officials failed to properly inject the prisoner with lethal injections, confirming the prisoner's suspicions that this mechanism of execution did not succeed in repeated cases. The guards had tied Smith on a stretcher for hours and injected needles into his hands, arms and collarbone, before eventually surrendering and returning him alive to his cell.

However, Smith argued that lethal injection was a cruel and unusual punishment and suggested that he be killed by gas — death by inhaling pure nitrogen — instead.

On May 15, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with him, meaning Smith would become the first person to be gassed. Smith also became perhaps the first person to succeed in his execution by resorting to a court ruling.

Alabama built a gas chamber in 2021 after lawmakers suggested that death from gas would be more humane than lethal injections.