A controversial Alabama execution taking place on Thursday has reignited scrutiny of the death penalty and highlighted the enduring nature of the practice despite attempts to end it.
Physicians and human rights experts have condemned the execution — which relies on an untested method known as nitrogen hypoxia — because there are concerns it could be painful and inhumane. Alabama is planning to use this method on an inmate named Kenneth Smith, after the state botched his first scheduled execution in 2022 when it couldn’t find an accessible vein for a lethal injection. Smith was sentenced to the death penalty after he was convicted of capital murder in 1988.
Using nitrogen hypoxia, the state will place a mask over Smith’s head that contains nitrogen instead of oxygen, an action that will eventually suffocate him.
Though a slim majority of Americans still back executions — Gallup’s November 2023 polling found a new low of 53 percent to be in favor of executing convicted murders — support has been declining for three decades, since a peak in 1994. Medical and ethical questions have also led critics to call for the abolition of the death penalty. And Gallup found that, for the first time, more people now feel the death penalty is unfairly applied than those who believe it’s fairly applied.
These stances have gained steam in recent years, with some pharmaceutical companies refusing to supply lethal drugs and equipment to conduct executions. Corporations like Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson are among those that block the sale of drugs and medical supplies for this purpose. Politically, the idea has begun to take hold as well. As part of his presidential policy platform in 2020, President Joe Biden said he’d work to abolish the federal death penalty, a proposal he’s been scrutinized for failing to follow through on. More than 20 states have also abolished the death penalty.
States like Texas, Florida, and Alabama have held out against this…
Read the full article here
