ATMORE, Ala. (WHNT) — News 19’s Lauren Layton was one of only five media witnesses present during the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith (pictured below) by nitrogen hypoxia on Thursday.
Smith was the first person to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia in the U.S.
During the entire process, she provided updates on the events surrounding the execution as it unfolded.
Below are time-stamped updates from News 19’s Lauren Layton throughout the day on Thursday from Holman Correctional. The most recent updates will appear toward the top.
9:35 p.m. – Death Penalty Action held a news conference following Smith’s execution. Officials from the organization and Spiritual Advisor Jeff Hood spoke at the conference, and discussed the method used, still calling it an ‘experiment.’
“What we saw was minutes of someone struggling for their life,” Hood said.
8:50 p.m. – After ADOC Commissioner John Hamm gave the details regarding Smith’s execution, Elizabeth Sennett’s sons spoke to the media at Holman Correctional.
8:43 p.m. – Attorney General Steve Marshall released a statement following Smith’s execution.
“Justice has been served. Tonight, Kenneth Smith was put to death for the heinous act he committed over 35 years ago: the murder-for-hire slaying of Elizabeth Sennett, an innocent woman who was by all accounts a godly wife, a loving mother and grandmother, and a beloved pillar of her community. I ask the people of Alabama to join me in praying for Elizabeth’s family and friends, that they might now better be able to find long-awaited peace and closure,” Marshall said.
He also took time to comment on the fact that this marks the first time nitrogen hypoxia has been used as an execution method in the nation.
“Alabama has achieved something historic. Like most states, Alabama has made the judgment that some crimes are so horrific that they warrant the ultimate penalty. But anti-death-penalty activists have worked to nullify that moral judgment through pressure campaigns against anyone assisting states in the process. They don’t care that Alabama’s new method is humane and effective, because they know it is also easy to carry out. Despite the international effort by activists to undermine and disparage our state’s justice system and to deny justice to the victims of heinous murders, our proven method offers a blueprint for other states and a warning to those who would contemplate shedding innocent blood. This is an important night for Liz Sennett’s family, for justice, and for the rule of law in our great nation.”
Attorney General Steve Marshall
8:28 p.m. – Witness Van returns to the media center.
8:25 p.m. – Governor Ivey’s office confirmed Kenneth Smith has been executed by nitrogen hypoxia, and his time of death was 8:25.
8:15 p.m. – The curtains to the execution room closed.
7:58 p.m. – This is around the time Layton says witnesses believe the gas began, and Smith began writhing and shaking. His eyes rolled back.
This was followed by several minutes of deep breaths until breaths weren’t visible by witnesses anymore.
7:55 p.m. – His last words were at about 7:55 p.m., and Layton said he spoke about love.
“Tonight, Alabama caused humanity to take a step backward,” Smith said. “I am leaving with love, peace and light…..I love you. Thank you for supporting me. I love all of you.”
Smith made an ‘I love you’ sign with his left hand while the warden read the death order. He continued that and other hand signs, but mostly gave the I love you sign using the hand his family could see from the window. The sign stopped shortly before he appeared to lose consciousness.
7:53 p.m. – According to News 19’s Lauren Layton who was in the viewing area, the curtains opened and they started carrying out the execution around 7:53 p.m.
7:00 p.m. – The witnesses for Kenneth Smith’s nitrogen hypoxia execution, including News 19’s Lauren Layton, have been taken back to the viewing room.
This execution would mark the first time a new method has been used since lethal injection was introduced 42 years ago.
The state protocol plans to place a “full facepiece supplied air respirator” over Smith’s face. Then, the nitrogen would be administered for at least 15 minutes or “five minutes following a flatline indication on the EKG, whichever is longer.”
6:49 p.m. – Smith’s petition for a stay was denied by the Supreme Court. The application for the stay of execution was presented to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who then referred it to the rest of the high court.
The application was presented to the whole court, and three justices – Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson – dissented.
In her written dissent, Justice Sotomayor noted that the method of execution is untested and that Smith had previously lived through an attempted execution. Sotomayor admonished the state for going forward with the execution despite her opinion that Smith’s Eight Amendment claims could succeed on the merits.
“Having failed to kill Smith on its first attempt, Alabama has selected him as its ‘guinea pig’ to test a method of execution never attempted before,” she said. “The world is watching. This Court yet again permits Alabama to ‘experiment . . . with a human life,’ while depriving Smith of “meaningful discovery” on meritorious constitutional claims.”
6:36 p.m. – The process was set to begin at 6 p.m. but our reporter at Holman Correctional has not indicated that they’ve been moved into the viewing area. As of this time, the Supreme Court had not issued any ruling on Smith’s request for a stay of execution.
5:31 p.m. – ADOC officials have shared information about how Kenneth Smith spent the last 24 hours leading up to his execution.
He had 9 visitors on Wednesday and Thursday and received a call from his wife on both days.
On Wednesday, Smith refused breakfast and received a lunch tray but did not eat it. ADOC says he received an evening meal and ate it partially.
Smith accepted a breakfast on Thursday and a final meal which consisted of steak, hashbrown and eggs.
Five family members and friends will witness Smith’s execution, ADOC says.
1:45 p.m. – On Thursday, Smith’s attorneys filed another petition to the United States Supreme Court requesting a stay of execution. The petition states that Smith has, “demonstrated that ADOC’s planned use of a one-size-fits-all mask creates a substantial risk that he will be left in a persistent vegetative state, experience a stroke, or asphyxiate on his own vomit.”
The petition reasons that, “It cannot be that this Court’s reasoning in Glossip [a previous decision], which involved an established execution method—i.e., that a petitioner bears “the burden of persuasion,” even when there is a “dearth of evidence,” —applies to an entirely new method of execution that has never been tried before anywhere, or even tested.”
“The State must bear some initial burden of production that the method it will use will not cause superadded pain, lest it be permitted to unilaterally select a new mode of execution without any scientific support or the need to produce the documents explaining how and why that method was accepted. Otherwise, the State could select even highly experimental methods of execution simply because they had been untested,” the petition states.
12:52 p.m. – Death row inmate Smith and his spiritual advisor Reverend Jeff Hood, who will accompany him during the execution, released a statement on Thursday afternoon
“The eyes of the world are on this impending moral apocalypse. Our prayer is that people will not turn their heads. We simply cannot normalize the suffocation of each other,” Smith and Hood said in the statement.
Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, also released a statement.
“Governor Kay Ivey is about to be party to a torturous violation of human rights and the right to life,” Bonowitz said. “If Kenny Smith were on trial today, he could not be sentenced to death at all because his jury was not unanimous regarding his sentence, and jury overrides were outlawed in Alabama in 2017.”
Source:
whnt.com, Taylor Mitchell, Logan Sparkman, Lauren Layton, January 26, 2024
Alabama carries out nation’s first known execution with nitrogen gas. What happened during the execution.
As the procedure started Thursday evening at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Smith was fitted with a mask, a device that would be used to administer the nitrogen.
The execution process began at 7:53 p.m. CT Thursday, and Smith was pronounced dead at 8:25 p.m., according to Alabama Department of Corrections officials.
Nitrogen flowed for about 15 minutes during the procedure, state corrections commissioner John Hamm said in a news conference.
Smith, who was on a gurney, appeared conscious for “several minutes into the execution,” and “shook and writhed” for about two minutes after that, media witnesses said in a joint report.
That was followed by several minutes of deep breathing before his breath began slowing “until it was no longer perceptible for media witnesses,” the media witnesses said.
When asked at the news conference about Smith shaking at the beginning of the execution, Hamm said Smith appeared to be holding his breath “for as long as he could” and may have also “struggled against his restraints.”
“There was some involuntary movement and some agonal breathing, so that was all expected and is in the side effects that we’ve seen and researched on nitrogen hypoxia,” Hamm said. “So nothing was out of the ordinary of what we were expecting.” Agonal breathing is an irregular, gasping breath pattern that can happen when someone is near death.
Smith’s spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeff Hood, who’d previously expressed concern that the method could be inhumane, witnessed the execution and described it in more graphic terms, saying it was “the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen.”
Smith, wearing a tight-fitting mask that covered his entire face, convulsed when the gas was turned on, “popped up on the gurney” repeatedly, and gasped, heaved and spat, Hood said.
“It was absolutely horrific,” he said.
Smith made a lengthy statement in front of the witnesses before the execution started, according to the pool reporters.
“Tonight Alabama caused humanity to take a step backward,” Smith said in part, according to the reporters. “I’m leaving with love, peace and light. Thank you for supporting me. Love all of you.”
Smith also “made a ‘I love you’ sign in sign language with one of his hands that was facing the room where his family was witnessing,” the journalists’ joint report said.
It’s unclear exactly how long it took for Smith to die.
During lethal injections, the nation’s most common execution method, the time it takes for an inmate to die varies widely depending on the drugs used, number of injections and individual inmates’ reactions.
In a typical three-injection protocol, a person can die as quickly as 30 to 60 seconds after the final fatal injection, experts say. But the process does not always go as outlined. In 2014, for example, an Oklahoma inmate had an apparent heart attack 43 minutes after receiving the first injection, according to state documents and witnesses.
Source:
CNN, Elizabeth Wolfe, Dakin Andone, Holly Yan and Caitlin Danaher, January 26, 2024
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