L: Kenneth Eugene Smith; R: Holman Correctional Facility’s lethal injection chamber.Photo:Alabama Department of Corrections via AP, AP Photo/Dave Martin
Alabama Department of Corrections via AP, AP Photo/Dave Martin
The state’s all-Republican court voted 6-2 without comment Wednesday, granting Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s most recent request for Smith’s execution warrant,the Associated Press reports.
Although the order did not require that Smith be executed with pure nitrogen, per the AP, Marshall’s request specified in court filings that he planned to utilize the new method.
Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississippi are the only states that have authorized nitrogen hypoxia for executions, according to the AP. But no state has actually gone forward with the procedure, which forces pure nitrogen into the inmate’s lungs while cutting off the oxygen supply,per the AP.
In theory, the procedure is painless — but its true effects are unknown.
Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery, Ala.Andi Rice/Bloomberg via Getty
Andi Rice/Bloomberg via Getty
Smith, who is currently awaiting his execution at William C. Holman Correctional Facility, has been on death row since January 1990, according to anonline filewith the Alabama Department of Corrections.
After taking out an insurance policy on his wife, the minister hired out her killing to a group of men including Smith in what was designed to look like “a burglary that went bad,” according to a transcription of Smith’s confession to police that was included in the decision.
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So, with the promise of $1,000 going to each man on the job, that March 18, 1988 morning, Smith and his associate, John Forrest Parker, knocked on the Sennetts' door. Once there, they told Elizabeth that her husband – who had arranged to be out of the house until noon – had offered to let them survey his property as prospective hunting grounds.
Elizabeth called her husband to confirm and allowed the men to roam the property — and come inside to use the restroom, Smith later told police.
Once inside, Parker “went into a frenzy,” Smith later told police, noting that the other man beat the woman with his fist and a cane and stabbed her, and that he “never stabbed Mrs. Sennett at all.”
A coroner later found that Elizabeth had died of repeated stabbings — eight times in the chest and once on each side of the neck, according to the appeals decision.
Kenneth Eugene Smith in undated mug shot.Alabama Department of Corrections via AP
Alabama Department of Corrections via AP
Smith was almost executed last November, AL.com reported, but after several hours in which he was tied to a gurney as officials tried to administer a lethal injection, his execution was halted because state workers did not think they could carry out the procedure before the execution warrant expired that midnight.
In a late night Tweet Wednesday, Marshall celebrated the state Supreme Court’s decision enabling Smith’s execution with nitrogen gas.
“Elizabeth Sennett’s family has waited an unconscionable 35 years to see justice served,” Marshall wrotein a poston X, the platform formerly called Twitter. He added: “Though the wait has been far too long, I am grateful that our talented capital litigators have nearly gotten this case to the finish line.”
Per the outlet, Governor Kay Ivey must set the execution date within 30 days from the court’s decision.
source: people.com
