Global Courant 2023-05-15 18:44:26
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected Alabama’s bid to execute a death row inmate by lethal injection.
Kenneth Smith, sentenced to death for the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Sennett, objected to being executed by lethal injection because of the pain it would cause. He claimed it would violate his right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.
A lethal injection room in Alabama.Dave Martin / AP file
Smith suggested using lethal gas—nitrogen hypoxia—instead.
The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for Smith in November, saying that because the state has approved the use of lethal gas, Smith could seek an alternative method of execution.
The appeals court ruling was issued by the state on the same day tried unsuccessfully Smith by lethal injection. Officials called off the execution after struggling to insert an intravenous line before the death sentence expired at midnight. The Supreme Court, which regularly allows executions, had previously authorized the execution.
Conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said they would have ruled in favor of the state.
“When the question is whether the Eighth Amendment requires a state to replace its chosen method with an alternative method in executing the plaintiff, it is simply irrelevant, plain and simple, that the state’s statutes prohibit the use of the alternative method that will take place…sometime in the undetermined future,” wrote Thomas.
Alabama officials say that while lethal gas was approved as an execution method in 2018, an execution protocol has not yet been established. It gave inmates 30 days to choose an alternative method, an option Smith did not choose at the time, the state says.
Smith’s lawyers say the state is already planning to execute other death row inmates with lethal gas.
The case follows a 2015 Supreme Court ruling that rejected a challenge to the lethal injection protocol used by Oklahoma.
The court then made it clear that if a detainee wishes to challenge the method of execution, he must demonstrate that there is a viable alternative that can be easily carried out.
In a 2019 follow-up case, the court ruled against a convicted murderer in Missouri who wanted to die by lethal gas instead of lethal injection because of a rare medical condition, saying prisoners were not guaranteed. “a painless death.”
Proponents of the death penalty have criticized lawyers who file last-minute claims in an attempt to postpone executions. During the plea in the 2015 case, Alito called it “a guerrilla war against the death penalty”.
There have been nine executions according to the Death Penalty Information Center so far this year in the United States.
