SCOTUS denies appeal by Kenneth Eugene Smith to halt world’s first nitrogen execution and allows Alabama to put him to death by inhaling the gas: Eats final meal of Waffle House steak and eggs

The Supreme Court has denied Kenneth Eugene Smith’s Hail Mary request for a stay of execution, meaning he is about to become the first person in history to be put to death with nitrogen gas.

Smith was scheduled to be executed tonight at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore at 6 p.m. He had begged to have the operation called off because he feared the experimental gassing method would cause excruciating pain or make him vomit.

Earlier, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall insisted the controversial method would be “painless” for Smith.

The Supreme Court yesterday rejected a request for a postponement. He filed another request today as the execution neared, but the judges rejected his desperate appeal and sent him to the chamber.

As Smith now heads to the execution chamber, his prison chaplain John Ewell told DailyMail.com he is “really struggling” to accept his fate.

One of the main reasons Alabama used nitrogen gas to execute Smith is the widespread struggle that U.S. prisons have faced in recent years in obtaining lethal injection drugs.

Despite warnings from human rights groups about the use of the method, AG Marshall insisted that Smith’s fears are unfounded, a decision ultimately approved by SCOTUS.

Citing experts, including euthanasia expert Dr. Philip Nitschke, Marshall said nitrogen hypoxia is a “peaceful” way to end a human life.

Nitschke had testified before Smith’s legal team, which argued that the risks lay in administering gas through a mask.

In rebuttal, Marshall said the state’s mask has been inspected and is tight enough to ensure oxygen doesn’t leak in, prolonging the procedure.

He cited Nitschke’s support for nitrogen hypoxia in assisted suicide as further evidence of how painless the execution will be.

“One of the many problems for Smith was his star witness, Dr. Philip Nitschke, who might as well have been testifying for the state.

“Before joining Smith’s case, Dr. Nitschke said critics of Alabama’s method ‘misrepresented the science,'” Marshall wrote.

Dr. Nitschke – who is also popularly known as ‘Dr. Death’ – said in the past that the method was ‘fast’, ‘effective’, ‘peaceful’ and ‘reliable’.

He also dismissed Smith’s fears about vomiting in the mask.

“Smith was grasping at straws and bickering over how nitrogen will be delivered. First, he said the mask is too loose and air can get in. But the state addressed those concerns when it produced the mask.

“Second, Smith said that in the few seconds between gas entering the mask and him losing consciousness, he will vomit and choke. But the court ruled (twice) that Smith’s fears were “speculative,” “theoretical,” and “unlikely.”

‘Smith claimed that he might vomit during the execution because he is experiencing nausea.

However, on cross-examination, Smith’s expert Katherine Porterfield conceded that Smith had not reported vomiting. ‘

He added that if Smith vomits into his mask before the gas is administered, the attending medical team will remove and clean it.

If he vomits into his mask after the gas is released, they won’t intervene.

Smith said this is a “highly theoretical” scenario based on a “cascade of unlikely events.”

The method of execution divided opinion, with some feeling that Smith’s 1988 crime was worthy of his place on death row.

At the age of 22, Smith was one of two men convicted of the murder-for-hire death of 45-year-old Elizabeth Sennett, the wife of preacher Charles Sennet Sr. who paid the men to kill his wife in an insurance plot.

His initial 1989 conviction was overturned on appeal, but he was retried and convicted again in 1996.

Prosecutors said he and John Forrest paid Parker $1,000 each for the killing, with Sennett’s husband hoping to collect on her insurance.

She was found dead in her Colbert County home on March 18 of that year with eight stab wounds to the chest and one on each side of her neck.

After learning that he was suspected of involvement in the plot, Charles Sennett Sr. suicide.

Smith was originally scheduled to be executed on November 17, 2022, but his lethal injection failed.

Smith recalled being in “a lot of pain” because those charged with injecting the lethal drugs – midazolam hydrochloride, rocuronium bromide and potassium chloride – punctured his muscle instead of finding a vein.

Smith has since said that the incessant jabs became so ridiculous that they turned into a farce, especially when one of the executioners finally asked Smith to squeeze his hand to make the vein more noticeable – a request that Smith declined.

Unable to find a second usable vein, Smith’s stretcher was tilted so that his feet faced upward in what he assumed was an attempt to get blood to his head and leave a vein in his neck more obvious.

He lay there for several minutes before the IV came back with an even larger needle in an attempt to connect a so-called central line (or central venous catheter) which is much longer than a regular intravenous line and goes all the way to a vein near or in the heart.

Smith reported that after several attempts to use the larger needle successfully, this pain became so unbearable that he trembled and wet himself.

The planned use of nitrogen gas for the first time sparked outrage among human rights and prison reform advocates in the weeks leading up to Thursday’s scheduled execution.

Reprieve, an international human rights organization focused on incarceration, told DailyMail.com that Smith’s planned execution was a travesty.

“Execution with nitrogen gas is the latest attempt to cover up state violence that takes human life,” the organization said.

“Despite nearly fifty years of horrific execution chamber scenes in which prisoners suffer painful deaths, proponents of the death penalty cling to the lie that it can be carried out humanely.

‘Alabama is once again trying to hide the reality of what happens in the execution chamber, switching methods to avoid answering questions about what went wrong last time, and is now proposing to use a method which has been rejected as a way by veterinarians. kill animals.

‘Witnesses will not be able to tell how much Kenneth Smith is suffering because the nitrogen is killing him: like the lethal injection protocol before it, the nitrogen protocol is specifically designed to conceal pain.

“The State of Alabama tortured Mr. Smith once by sticking him with needles for hours, and by using him as a guinea pig for a dangerous, untested new execution method, it is torturing him again.”