Inside the Story of Kenneth Eugene Smith's Execution By Nitrogen Gas Part 2

Following the death of Elizabeth Sennett and Charles taking his own life. Kenneth Smith and his accomplices were brought to trial. Due to the overwhelming publicity of the case. The location of the trial was changed; the trial was moved away from Colbert County.

Billy Gray Williams, the man who recruited Smith and John Forest Parker, was sentenced to life in prison. Similarly, Smith and Parker were tried and found guilty by the jury. Due to the nature of the crime they had committed, the jury recommended the death sentence for Smith and Parker with a vote of 10-2.

It was customary in Alabama before 2017, that the jury would help the trial judge decide on difficult cases that may require the defendant to be sentenced to death. If the jury had up to 10 votes for a death sentence, the judge would give the defendant a death sentence. However, it is good to know that the judge's decision was not bound to the conclusion of the jury, he/she had the final say and could make a decision completely different from what the jury had agreed upon.

Smith and Parker were sentenced to death in November 1989. However, this verdict did not stand for long as it was overturned following an appeal by Smith. During the retrial, the jury made a recommendation for a life sentence, but the trial judge gave a different sentence; he sentenced him to death again.

Parker has since been executed by lethal injection on June 10, 2010. Williams died in prison in November 2020.

The Failed Execution of Kenneth Smith

After more than 30 years on death row, Smith's final day on earth was scheduled to be November 17, 2022. At 7:57 PM on that fateful day, Smith was shackled and led to the execution chamber. At 10:00 pm the execution team started the process of putting him to death.

They found a tourniquet and fastened it around his arm to find a vein for the infusion of the lethal dose of pentobarbital. The team tried all they could, but they couldn't secure an I.V access; the needle kept going into his muscle instead of his vein. This continued for more than an hour and by 11:20 pm, his execution was called off.

Smith's case of botched execution was not isolated, in February 2018, Doyle Lee Hamm, a man who was on death row for the murder of another man in 1987 was taken to the execution chamber in Alabama, but the execution team could not get a vein to use for the lethal injection. Doyle had developed lymphatic cancer while in prison. This damaged his veins. After his failed execution, Doyle's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. However, he died in prison in November 2021.

Following the failed execution of Kenneth Smith and Doyle Lee Hamm, Governor Kay Ivey asked the Alabama Supreme Court to make some changes to the state court rules that would allow the Department of Corrections enough time to carry out the execution, especially in cases where it becomes difficult to secure an I.V access. This change was approved in January 2023.

The Upcoming Execution of Kenneth Smith

The execution of Kenneth Smith has been scheduled to take place on January 25, 2024. The chosen method of execution has never been used on any man anywhere in the world. The use of Nitrogen gas in the execution of Kenneth Smith was approved by a federal judge on January 10, 2024.

Execution by Nitrogen gas is also called nitrous hypoxia. Hypoxia means a lack of oxygen. In this process of execution, Smith will be made to breathe in only nitrogen, the absence of oxygen in his body is what will kill him.

This is a timeline of what happens to the brain when deprived of oxygen.

In this execution, Smith will be forced to breathe pure nitrogen, he will be deprived of the oxygen his body needs to carry out its functions.

Between 30-180 seconds of oxygen deprivation, one may lose consciousness. Just a few minutes and the brain would suffer irreparable damage that will ultimately lead to death.

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