Alabama, unless stopped by the courts, intends to strap Kenneth Eugene Smith to a gurney Thursday and use a gas mask to replace breathable air with nitrogen, depriving him of oxygen, in the nation’s first execution attempt with the method.
The Alabama attorney general’s office told federal appeals court judges last week that nitrogen hypoxia is “the most painless and humane method of execution known to man.” But what exactly Smith, 58, will feel after the warden switches on the gas is unknown, some doctors and critics say.
“What effect the condemned person will feel from the nitrogen gas itself, no one knows,” Dr. Jeffrey Keller, president of the American College of Correctional Physicians, wrote in an email. “This has never been done before. It is an experimental procedure.”
Keller, who was not involved in developing the Alabama protocol, said the plan is to “eliminate all of the oxygen from the air” that Smith is breathing by replacing it with nitrogen.
I don’t see it as revenge but instead as a means to let families move on. I think it is a burden to them knowing this person is still somewhere out there, even if they are locked.
These are pretty special cases. I think countries with capital punishment take those sentences very seriously, it’s not like they go around killing people for funsies.
I think that particular individual that I sent really should be killed. It’s just too much, his case is just too extreme. This is just an evil person… Raping, TORTURING, killing and raping again 300+ innocent minors in the span of 7 years.
He raped, tortured and killed one minor per week in average, for 7 years. Doing that a single time is INSANE. Doing that 300+ times just deserves death.
I get what you’re saying. I disagree, because I just find the concept of capital punishment ethically and morally wrong. Just because someone killed, no matter how and how many, doesn’t give us the right to kill. Not as individuals and not as a society. We have to be better than that.