The Community of Sant’Egidio has voiced its opposition to an execution scheduled in Alabama for 25 January, set to be carried out with an untested method.
Sant’Egidio, which is known for mediating conflicts worldwide, shared a petition on 23 January urging Alabama’s Governor Kay Ivey to halt the execution of convicted murderer Kenneth Eugene Smith.
Smith is scheduled to die on Thursday after being convicted of the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, whom Sennett’s husband, a Protestant pastor, had paid Smith to kill.
The state of Alabama attempted to execute Smith in November 2022 by lethal injection, but postponed his execution after an attempt to administer the injection was unsuccessful.
Sant’Egidio, founded and based in Rome, has advocated for many years for an end to the death penalty.
The group warns that Smith will be the first person in the world to be executed using nitrogen hypoxia, which involves fitting of a mask over the condemned person’s face and pure nitrogen – a normally harmless gas – being pumped through it, leading to suffocation.
“We are asking that this execution be stopped because the world cannot afford to regress to the stage of killing in a more barbaric way,” said Mario Marazziti, who heads Sant’Egidio’s death penalty abolition group.
The UN Human Rights Office warned this month that the execution method – which is controversial due to a lack of data on what the inmate could experience during the execution – could amount to torture under international human rights law.
In a statement last week, Ravina Shamdasani, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said that nitrogen gas has never been used in the US to execute human beings.
“The American Veterinary Medical Association recommends giving even large animals a sedative when being euthanised in this manner, while Alabama’s protocol for execution by nitrogen asphyxiation makes no provision for sedation of human beings prior to execution,” she said.
The Catholic Mobilising Network, an advocacy group that demonstrates against the death penalty, urged Catholics to speak out against Smith’s scheduled execution and its method.
“Kenny should not be subjected to a second execution, especially with the uncertainty that surrounds this new, untested method,” the group said.
According to the Death Penalty Information Centre, Alabama introduced nitrogen hypoxia as a method of execution in August 2023 and is the first state to create and release a protocol for using the method.
“Lethal gas” is authorised as an execution method in seven states, though only three have specifically authorised the use of nitrogen.
Alabama’s death penalty has been under scrutiny for several years following a number of failed executions, such as in 2018 when Doyle Lee Hamm was strapped to a stretcher for two-and-a-half hours as prison medical officials were unable to find a suitable vein for the lethal injection.
On Wednesday the Supreme Court denied Smith’s request to review the constitutionality of his death sentence.
Loading ...
