The US plans to execute a person using nitrogen for the first time
Kyiv • UNN
The first execution of death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith by nitrogen gas will take place in the United States, after his appeal was rejected.
Death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith will become the first person in the United States to be executed by nitrogen gas after he lost a last-minute appeal. This is reported by the BBC, UNN writes.
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The U.S. Supreme Court and a lower appellate court refused to overturn Smith's sentence, which his lawyers called "cruel and unusual."
Opponents say that the use of nitrogen can cause severe suffering, and a leak could harm people in the room. As noted, breathing pure nitrogen without oxygen causes cellular destruction and leads to death.
Alabama's court filing says they expect him to lose consciousness within seconds and die within minutes.
Smith will be the first person to be executed in this way in the United States and, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, worldwide.
It is reported that Smith had already been executed by lethal injection two years ago, but was not executed before the state's death warrant expired.
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Smith, 58, was convicted in 1989 for the murder of 45-year-old Elizabeth Sennett. He killed the woman on a $1,000 contract.
She was beaten with a fireplace and stabbed in the chest and neck, and her death was staged to look like a home invasion and robbery.
The murder was organized by the woman's husband to get the insurance money. He committed suicide when investigators came close to him.
