Execution of a condemned person to death by nitrogen inhalation: what is this process used for the first time this Thursday in the United States ?

The Supreme Court refused to stay the execution scheduled for Thursday, January 25 in Alabama. MAXPPP ILLUSTRATION – JIM LO SCALZO

The state of Alabama is preparing to use a new method of executing an inmate sentenced to death this Thursday, January 25: hypoxia with nitrogen.

Kenneth Smith, sentenced to death for his role in a murder committed in 1988, could be the first inmate to experience death from nitrogen hypoxia on American soil this Thursday, January 25.

This method, used for the first time, consists of placing a mask on the condemned person and making him breathe nitrogen, which causes asphyxiation.

A recent protocol and never tested in Alabama

Supreme Court judges rejected Kenneth Smith's request for a stay of execution. Kenneth Smith's lawyers had asked the Supreme Court to intervene before their client's execution, arguing that the protocol planned by Alabama was “recent and not appropriate”. #39;had not been tested" and that nitrogen hypoxia was “a new method of execution that has never been tried by any state or federal government” .

First Nitrogen Hypoxia Execution Scheduled In US

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall requested that the Alabama #SupremeCourt schedule the execution of convicted killer Kenneth Eugene Smith via the novel method of nitrogen hypoxia. pic.twitter.com/1HcXDxivZZ

— 𝗡 𝗢 𝗜 𝗦 𝗘 ⚡ A L E R T S (@NoiseAlerts) August 27, 2023

The Attorney General of Alabama, Republican Steve Marshall, for his part declared in a document that this method was "perhaps the method of execution the most human ever conceived.

Request for suspension 

The United Nations Human Rights Office on January 16 asked the authorities of the state of Alabama to suspend the execution of Kenneth Smith, believing that it could amount to torture.

American states still carrying out executions face difficulties in obtaining barbiturates used in lethal injections, in particular because of a European ban that prevents pharmaceutical companies from selling the drugs intended for use during executions.