Grönt ljus för kritiserad avrättning med kvävgas

Kenneth Eugene Smith (born July 4, 1965) is an American criminal who was convicted of the March 18, 1988, murder-for-hire of Elizabeth Sennett in Colbert County, Alabama. Charles Sennett Sr., Elizabeth's husband, recruited Billy Gray Williams to murder his wife. Williams in turn recruited Smith and John Forrest Parker to assist in the murder. Smith and Parker carried out the murder and stabbed Elizabeth Sennett to death at her home in Colbert County. A week after Elizabeth Sennett's murder, Charles Sennett Sr. killed himself when he learned he was a suspect in the murder. Billy Gray Williams was sentenced to life without parole and died in prison in November 2020 due to an illness. Smith and John Forrest Parker were both sentenced to death. Parker was executed via lethal injection in June 2010. Smith remains on death row.In November 2022, Smith was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection, but the execution was stopped after the execution team was unable to connect the intravenous lines to Smith in the time available before the expiration of the death warrant issued by the Alabama Supreme Court. As part of a settlement between the state and Smith, the state agreed not to pursue Smith's execution by lethal injection (the default primary method of execution in Alabama) and instead utilize a secondary novel method of execution, nitrogen hypoxia. Smith is scheduled to be executed today, January 25, 2024; if the process goes ahead, it will make him the first person in the world ever to be executed using nitrogen hypoxia.