Madison Meeks

Editor-in-Chief

mvm7037@psu.edu

WASHINGTON D.C. – Wednesday, January 24, 2024 was the day The Supreme Court rejected a death row inmate’s late minute request for a stay of execution. This rejection moves him up a step closer to being put to death. The state of Alabama is going to move forward with his execution by using an untested method, nitrogen gas. 

The death row inmate named Kenneth Smith, was sentenced to death in 1988. He was sentenced for the murder of Elizabeth Sennett. He had submitted a Supreme Court request to stop the procedure due to the fact that the state might mess up while executing him with nitrogen hypoxia. 

He claimed that it would violate his right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment as stated by NBC News. According to NBC News, he is scheduled to be executed on Thursday, January 25.

 A separate claim has been filed and is pending in federal court which could lead to the execution being called off. According to NBC News, Smith’s lawyers claimed that the use of nitrogen hypoxia in executions has never happened before in the United States. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the last inmate that was put to death using lethal gas was in 1999. In May 2023, the Supreme Court had rejected Smith’s earlier attempt to be put to death by lethal injection. 

If the state of Alabama goes ahead with the execution this will only be the second time in history that a person has been put to death by lethal gas in the United States.