The American state of Alabama is preparing to put a condemned man to death by nitrogen inhalation on Thursday, a world first denounced by the UN which compared this method of execution to a form of “torture”.
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The execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith, definitively sentenced in 1996 to the death penalty for the murder of a woman ordered by her husband, will be the first of the year in the United States, where 24 have been carried out in 2023, all by lethal injection.
The Republican governor of this southeastern state, Kay Ivey, has set Thursday, 06:00 GMT, as the start of the 36-hour period during which the execution can be held.
A previous attempt to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith by lethal injection, on November 17, 2022, was canceled at the last minute, the intravenous infusions to inject him with the lethal solution not having been able to be placed within the legally allotted time, after “having been tied up for several hours,” according to his lawyers.
Alabama is one of three US states authorizing executions by nitrogen inhalation, in which death is caused by hypoxia (oxygen depletion).
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said it was “alarmed” on January 16 by this planned execution “using a new and untested method, nitrogen hypoxia. “.
This “could constitute torture or other cruel or degrading treatment under international law,” warned a spokesperson for the High Commission, Ravina Shamdasani, calling for a stay of this execution.
Alabama’s nitrogen hypoxia execution protocol does not include sedation, although the American Veterinary Association (AVMA) recommends sedating even large animals when euthanized. in this way, emphasized the spokesperson.
Exhausted appeals
Kenneth Eugene Smith, whose appeals in Alabama have been rejected, petitioned the United States Supreme Court, arguing that this new execution attempt would violate his constitutional rights, as well as requesting a stay. But the country’s highest court, with a conservative majority, rejected this request on Wednesday.
In its written arguments to the Supreme Court opposing it, the State of Alabama even went so far as to present nitrogen hypoxia as “perhaps the most humane method of execution ever invented.” .
Kenneth Eugene Smith was convicted of the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, 45, ordered by her husband, Charles Sennett, a heavily indebted and unfaithful pastor, to make it appear as a burglary gone wrong.
Despite the husband’s suicide, the police traced the two murderers. Kenneth Eugene Smith’s accomplice, John Forrest Parker, sentenced to death, was executed in 2010.
Kenneth Smith was also sentenced to the death penalty for the first time but the trial was overturned on appeal. During his second trial in 1996, the jurors were divided on the sentence: 11 out of 12 recommended a life sentence.
But in his case as in that of his accomplice, the judge had ignored the opinion of the jurors and had sentenced him to the death penalty, a possibility existing at the time in a few states but now abolished nationwide. American.
In its annual report published in December, the specialized observatory Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) highlighted that most of the prisoners executed in 2023 in the United States “would probably not be sentenced to death today”, due to the taking taking into account in particular the mental health problems and trauma of the defendants or legislative changes to pronounce the death penalty.
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 American states, while six others observe a moratorium on its application by decision of the governor.
