ATMORE, Ala. — Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall on Friday vowed to continue using nitrogen gas in executions and offered to assist other states interested in the novel method, while fending off concerns that an inmate executed the night before did not become unconscious as quickly as expected and thrashed on the gurney, according to witnesses.
“What occurred last night was textbook,” Marshall told reporters after the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith on Thursday evening by nitrogen hypoxia, in which he was forced to breathe only nitrogen through a mask and was denied oxygen.
The execution, the first in the U.S. using nitrogen gas, lasted roughly 30 minutes from the time it started to Smith’s time of death. Marshall said Friday that nitrogen hypoxia “is no longer an untested method — it is a proven one.”
But the physical reaction of Smith, who was 58 and on death row for over three decades for a 1988 murder-for-hire slaying, was already being highly scrutinized after a 2022 attempt to execute him by lethal injection failed when prison staff could not locate a suitable vein.
Media witnesses to Thursday’s execution said Smith was conscious for several minutes into the execution and then appeared to shake and writhe on the gurney for two minutes. They said that was followed by several minutes of deep breaths until his breathing slowed and it was no longer perceptible.
The state had said in court filings that “the experts agree that nitrogen hypoxia is painless because it causes unconsciousness in seconds,” and death within minutes.
Marshall could not say exactly when the nitrogen began to flow into the mask, making it difficult to discern the timing.
But one media witness said it appeared to take longer than the state had suggested for Smith to become unconscious and die.
“It’s interesting to see the attorney general say that everything went consistent with plans that they laid out,” Lee Hedgepeth, an Alabama reporter, said on MSNBC.
“We saw him begin violently…
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