Controversial Execution in Alabama, New Mexico Considers Death Penalty

Alabama scheduled execution by controversial means, New Mexico considers reestablishing the death penalty.Photo byMaria OswaltonUnsplash

Unless the United States Supreme Court intervenes January 25, 2024 ,the state pf Alabama will attempt to put an inmate to death with nitrogen gas. This process has never before used as an execution method that the state claims will be humane but critics call cruel and experimental.

Kenneth Eugene Smith, a 58-year-old convicted killer whose 2022 lethal injection was called off at the last minute because authorities couldn’t connect an IV line, is scheduled to be executed at a south Alabama prison on January 25th, 2024.

Alabama plans to put a respirator mask over Smith’s face and replace his breathing air with pure nitrogen gas, causing him to die from lack of oxygen. The execution will be the first attempt to use a new execution method since the 1982 introduction of lethal injection, now the most common execution method in the United States.

Smith’s attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution to review claims that the new method violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment and deserves more legal scrutiny before it is used on a person.

“There is little research regarding death by nitrogen hypoxia. When the State is considering using a novel form of execution that has never been attempted anywhere, the public has an interest in ensuring the State has researched the method adequately and established procedures to minimize the pain and suffering of the condemned person,” Smith’s attorneys wrote in a brief to the US Supreme Court.

On Wednesday January 24th, 2024 an appeals court judges rejected Smith’s argument that it would be unconstitutional to make another attempt to execute him after the failed lethal injection.

Smith is one of two men convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of Elizabeth Sennett. Prosecutors said he and the other man were each paid $1,000 to kill Sennett on behalf of her pastor husband, who was deeply in debt and wanted to collect on insurance.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said Wednesday night that he believes the courts will allow the execution to proceed.

Meanwhile in New Mexico, the District 51 legislator has proposed House Bill 77 that would restablish the death penalty and HB109 establishing which crimes would qualify for the death penalty in New Mexico if passed.

Capital punishment was abolished in the U.S. state of New Mexico in 2009. The law replaced the death penalty for the most serious crimes with life imprisonment and life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. This makes New Mexico the fifteenth state in the U.S. to abolish capital punishment.

Since the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976 (in the case of Gregg v. Georgia), only one person has been executed in New Mexico. This was Terry Clark, who was put to death in 2001, by lethal injection, for the murder of a child. The penalty was abolished by House Bill 2085, which was signed by Governor Bill Richardson on March 18, 2009 and came into force on July 1 of that year. Section 6 of the law states, "The provisions of this act apply to crimes committed on or after July 1, 2009".

A recent Gallup poll from October found 53% of Americans who favor the death penalty is the lowest since 1972, though it is not statistically different from 54% and 55% readings over the past three years.

Gallup first asked Americans whether they supported the death penalty for convicted murderers in 1936 and found 59% favoring it. With the exception of several readings between 1957 and March 1972, including the record-low 42% in 1966, majorities have supported it since then.

Even after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional in June 1972, majorities continued to back it, and after it was reinstated in 1976, public support for it grew, eventually peaking at 80% in 1994. At least 60% of U.S. adults favored capital punishment until 2017, when support dipped below that level.

The Democratic majority is not expected to tackle the issue amoung a full house vote. At present both bills are proposed and not yet in consideration before committee.