Witnesses watched through a window at an Alabama prison as Kenneth Eugene Smith became the nation's first person to be put to death using nitrogen gas.

ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — As witnesses including five news reporters watched through a window, Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was convicted and sentenced to die in the 1988 murder-for hire slaying of Elizabeth Sennett, convulsed on a gurney as Alabama carried out the nation’s first execution using nitrogen gas.

  • rbesfe@lemmy.ca
    0·
    10 months ago

    I’m just an armchair medic, but wouldn’t a second tube to evacuate exhaled CO2 prevent this? This feels like monumental stupidity on the side of the prison, not necessarily a flaw with nitrogen as an execution method.

    • KISSmyOS@feddit.de
      0·
      9 months ago

      Anesthesizing someone is difficult and you need the right drugs. No licensed doctor is allowed nor willing to do it, and no company making the drugs agrees to its use for killing people.