Sept 22 (Reuters) - The Supreme Court of Alabama is weighing whether to allow the state to become the first to execute a prisoner with a novel method: asphyxiation using nitrogen gas.
Last month, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall asked the court to allow the state to proceed with gassing Kenneth Smith, who was convicted of murder in 1996, using a face mask connected to a cylinder of nitrogen intended to deprive him of oxygen.
Smith’s lawyers have said the untested protocol may violate the U.S. Constitution’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishments,” and have argued a second attempt to execute him by any method is unconstitutional.
In a reply brief filed with the court on Friday, they called the nitrogen gas protocol “so heavily redacted that it is unintelligible,” and said Smith had not yet exhausted his appeals.
Honestly if I had to choose, it would be nitrogen. The alternatives in Alabama are electrocution and lethal injection, both of which are absolutely horrifying. If I was him I’d be firing my lawyers for trying to get the state to use methods that essentially torture you to death instead of the one that just makes you fall asleep.
Absolutely monstrous that he’s getting the death penalty in the first place though. I hope he isn’t in the 5% or so who turn out to be innocent.
Jesus fucking Christ, I just read about the first attempt. The state of Alabama tortured this man for hours, injected him with who knows what, and now they want to do it again. As far as I’m concerned he served his sentence.