State’s ‘slow and agonizing’ execution of Kenneth Smith using an untested method labeled as cruel by experts and advocates

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/14097254

Smith’s execution by “nitrogen hypoxia” took around 22 minutes, according to media witnesses, who were led into a viewing room at the William C Holman correctional facility in Atmore shortly before 8 pm local time.

After the nitrogen gas began flowing, Smith convulsed on the gurney for several minutes. The state had previously said the nitrogen gas would cause Smith to lose consciousness in seconds and die within minutes, according to the Associated Press.

“I’ve been to four previous executions and I’ve never seen a condemned inmate thrash in the way that Kenneth Smith reacted to the nitrogen gas,” Lee Hedgepeth, a journalist who witnessed the execution, told the BBC’s Newsday programme.

  • lennybird@lemmy.worldEnglish
    301·
    9 months ago

    So what you’re saying is they didn’t scrub the CO2 that he expelled and so he basically rebreathed that, triggering the brainstem signal of hypercapnia?

    Wouldn’t this be resolved by having a tube with a slight negative pressure (like reverse cpap) linked to his nose for exhalation while the nitrogen was pumped via the mouth upon inhalation?

    • MagicShel@programming.dev
      36·
      9 months ago

      That’s what I’m gathering from the articles. And yes, there are several ways it might’ve been done without causing suffering.

      The problem seems to be (based on all the articles I read leading up to this) that they were treating Nitrogen like a poison and they were afraid of all the ways Nitrogen might leak out, harming other folks such as the clergy attending him. It’s hard to tell whether that stupidity came from the journalists, lawyer, or prison officials.

      But basically you are right, there are ways this can be done far more humanely (if you absolutely must execute someone, which is an argument for another day), but this wasn’t it.