Alabama executes man using 'inhumane' nitrogen asphyxiation for the first time | DW News
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- Опубликовано: 24 янв 2024
- Alabama executed a man using the controversial method of nitrogen asphyxiation on Thursday. Convicted murderer Kenneth Eugene Smith was pronounced dead on Thursday evening after breathing pure nitrogen gas through a face mask to cause oxygen deprivation.
The execution took around 22 minutes. Witnesses report shaking and writhing. For at least two minutes, Smith appeared to shake on the gurney, sometimes pulling against the restraints. That was followed by several minutes of heavy breathing, witnesses said. "It appeared that Smith was holding his breath as long as he could," Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said when asked about the shaking at a press conference. "He struggled against the restraints a little bit but it's an involuntary movement and some agonal breathing. So that was all expected." It was the first time a new execution method has been used in the US since the lethal injection was introduced in 1982. "Tonight Alabama causes humanity to take a step backwards. ... I'm leaving with love, peace and light," Smith said in his final message.
Why was the execution so controversial?
Alabama Attorney-General Steve Marshall claimed that nitrogen asphyxiation is "perhaps the most humane method of execution ever devised." However, Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the UN rights office in Geneva, warned the method could "amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, under international human rights law." Alabama had previously attempted to execute Smith - who had been on death row since 1989 - using a lethal injection in 2022 but this was called off at the last minute when authorities couldn't find an IV line.
'The world is watching'
Smith's lawyers had tried to block the nitrogen asphyxiation execution, arguing that the state was making him a test subject for an experimental execution method that could violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The legal battle went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled on Thursday that the execution could go ahead. Justice Sonia Sotomayor was one of three dissenting judges who condemned the execution method. "Having failed to kill Smith on its first attempt, Alabama has selected him as its 'guinea pig' to test a method of execution never attempted before," she wrote. "The world is watching." Alabama Governor Kay Ivey said the execution was justice for the family Elizabeth Sennett, who Smith was convicted of murdering in 1988. "After more than 30 years and attempt after attempt to game the system, Mr Smith has answered for his horrendous crimes. I pray that Elizabeth Sennett's family can receive closure after all these years dealing with that great loss," she said in a statement.
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#Alabama #Execution #nitrogenasphyxiation
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What sort of humane methods did Mr. Smith use on his victim?
So it should still be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, even at least 4 thousand years after this ancient Hebrew rule ?
Everyone is so worried about how this murderer died, no one seems to care about how the woman he murdered 35 years ago died or what she went thru while he murdered her...
Bruh, so much time has passed, obviously I will not spend much time wondering about his victim. He was in jail for so long, they could have let him leave. He was a different person from 30 years ago. He could have been given a second chance.
Was his victim given a second chance?
@@IceQueenaliasIQ Right he was such a good boy! He had changed! Yeah right!!!
Everyone is so worried about how this murderer died that no one seems to care about how barbaric the death penalty is.
@@johndavis9432 I'm not saying he is or was good; I say that he has with a very high probability changed into a totally different person because so much time has passed and because his life was changed so drastically by putting him in prison.
You don't lock up people you don't know because you think they are dangerous, do you? Because that would be paranoid and insane.
In the case of this dude, he could have still been a disagreeable person. But if psychologists find no indication that he wil harm members of society, he should be released (after enough punishment has been exacted, which I think was the case after 30+ years of prison). Because we legitimately have no basis (anymore) to assume that he is at this point in time more dangerous than the average citizen.
I'm told death from hypoxemia is no worse than falling asleep. The patient doesn't get the air hunger or feeling of drowning, he just loses cognitive skills. This explains why pilots who depressurize without oxygen can fall asleep at the wheel without enough alarm to trigger them to adjust flying height above ground. Your guest has a philosophical disagreement with capital punishment, but his argument that it is inhumane is vacuous.
Really I'm a Chem ENG. Happens on plants. I have to write the reports. Dr's only have 6 months chemistry. They know nothing.
The government has sadistic people on the pay roll thinking up new ways to anger God?
@@riaanvanwyk175couldn’t get into med school, huh?
@@KC-bv9kfI did huh. Please go play somewhere else. What did you study?
Why not fentanyl It honestly seems perfect for it painless you don’t even know you stopped breathing and essentially you’re doing the same thing as the hypoxia except instead of pumping nitrogen and you just depress the central nervous system into not breathing anymore.
Why make things so complicated ? Hanging is more economical & effective
How can drugs of all things be unobtainable in the US?
Prisons are, in many cases, inhumane as well. If someone is jailed for a lifetime, it is more torturous than any execution in history. And now we are questioning execution methods? On my watch, executions and prisons, as they exist largely everywhere, are inhumane and don’t strive or don't aim primarily for the betterment of prisoners' mental illness, rehabilitation, or integration into society. Don’t you think this is double standards?
They have no true Morals. This country ist responsible for so much Horror ans pain at Home and Worldwide.
And it'll never Stop or Chance.
Why question anything? They gonna do evil Things on a large scale anyways.
What kind of billshit is this? Asphyxiation is literally the _most_ humane method of execution. You just pass out.
"Show me the data!" Get bent.
My experiences with this has been Aerospace accidents. It's very fast, people walk into a confined space consisting of 100% of GN2 pass out and expire. I'm not advocating anything. Just facts, GN2 on the body are well understood. Course strapping on a mask seems problematic.
Nitrogen asphyxiation with your head in a plastic bag is one method proposed by DIY euthanasia advocates. Can’t be all that bad.
bruh some US states are living in the middle ages for real 😅
No really
Just having execution or you think this method is painful? Learn about scuba diving nitrogen narcosis.
If you call that living.
Tons of people have to work 3 minimum wage jobs, can't buy decent food and take a dump that is flushed into their backyards - no sewer no septic tank, just open pipes. Then throw in people refusing to get vaccinated - I mean come on, the guy calling out "bring out your dead!" and ringing a bell is just a cholera epidemic away
Wow. no middle ground here. Comments are either "screw that guy, what about his victims" or "how barbaric of Alabama". No more middle ground for discussion in the USA. For my lot, I think the inhumane for-profit prison system is the real problem with my country.
Absolutely - not to mention the way those who can't pay a simple fine right away can end up in a debt spiral and then land in prison
RUclips is not the barometer of the human experience. Go offline and see for yourself.
Survive 3 weeks without food, 3 days without water, 3 minutes without air
What happened to the firing squad
+paulhocq1207 *Exactly* ! Quite literally the most well enacted method out there. Its even proven! Usa gets more delusional every single day. Its simple acute and immediate
Firing squads have been proven to be extremely traumatic for those pulling the trigger.
Utah did it less than 10 years ago
They were fired
Why don’t they use carbon monoxide?? It’s been tested for thousands of years
"Humane execution". That's an oxymoron
Oh boo hoo! It is an inhumane punishment? What humanity was there for the man's victim? What thought did he give to the family and friends of the victim?
He might suffer? Oh dear. Isn't that sad?
Still living in the European Dark Ages, huh?
So you are saying the state should be just as imoral as this guy is? I would not want to live in a state that is no better then a murderer.
@@MofaGames Aaaaw bless! I've offended your liberal sensibilities...
Bless! Well, a lot of people do not want a society where the criminal is treated better than the victim.
@@PLuMUK54 Not a liberal. Not offended. More like appalled. You‘re quite presumptuous.
Smh 🤦🏻♀️ what is this world becoming?
Allowing these monsters to live for free is 'inhumane'.
🌹🇮🇱🤍💙🇺🇸🇺🇦❤🤍💙💛
😐😐😐
The impertinence of telling another country what to do... but if we are at it, I don't see them complaining about the north steam pipeline. I think that deserves more a "hey, don't do that".
Priorities...
No To Execution
If there is no panicking there is no pain then let’s go if it’s time man this what always gets me is these guys all want to live after they have killed however if a man has survived an attempted execution then let him go if you can’t get it then you got to let him go nature if the beast and GODS LAW HE WASNT SUPPOSED TO DIE
It’s not the medieval, Victorian, etc times anymore lol
There is a common misconception that if a prisoner survives an execution, he or she should be let go. That's not how American law works.
@@jeansherwood2428: At the same time, I think there is a good argument that the prisoner is sentenced to death (which sort of implies one attempt at killing the convicted person), not to being executed multiple times. Maybe the law should be changed so that the state gets one bite and one bite only at the cherry.
As an Australian, I feel that Smith was punished at least 3 times over, he was incarcerated for around 30 years (by that time, unless there were exceptional circumstances, he'd have been released in Australia), there was the first attempt at executing him and then the second.
Alabama is so bass ackwards
Basically America is a 3rd world country with Gucci belt
Yep. Depravity in every corner…
If an execution is intended to inflict suffering isn't that just another murder?
It would be worse to divert 30k a year from needy children, or the victim's family in order to keep this guy alive for another 20 years.
That's $30k for 20 years!
How warped does your brain have to be to see his life worth that of the pain he inflicted on the parents?
Everyone is so worried about how this murderer died that no one seems to care about how barbaric the death penalty is.
Zyklone B