Alabama executed a death row inmate using nitrogen gas Thursday, marking the first time a convict was put to death in the U.S. using a method critics have called experimental, inhumane and a potential breach of international conventions against torture.
Anti-death penalty activists place signs along the road heading to Holman Correctional Facility in ... [+]
Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, who had been sentenced to death for a 1988 murder, was pronounced dead at 8:25 p.m., a state corrections official said in a press conference on Thursday night.
Smith’s execution was carried out by strapping him to a gurney and using a mask that would force him to breathe nitrogen gas and deprive him of oxygen.
According to a pool of reporters who attended the execution, the Smith appeared to remain conscious for several minutes and “visibly shook and writhed against the gurney” after the gas was pumped into the mask.
Despite the state’s earlier claims that the nitrogen execution would cause almost immediate unconsciousness, the reporters said the gas began flowing at 7:58 p.m. local time, while he appeared to stop breathing ten minutes later at 8:08 p.m.
Corrections officials told reporters Smith may have been “holding his breath as long as he could” and said his struggling against the restraints was “an involuntary movement.”
While delivering his final statement, Smith said: “Tonight, Alabama causes humanity to take a step backwards.”