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In one of the last interviews he ever did, Kenneth Eugene Smith expressed fear and uncertainty about his upcoming execution and condemned the government for not providing him an opportunity to heal and redeem himself. Yet on Jan. 25, 58-year-old Smith became the first death row inmate to be executed in the United States this year.
Marking Alabama’s second attempt to carry out Smith’s death sentence, Smith was killed 35 years after his conviction for participating in the murder-for-hire of 45-year-old Elizabeth Sennett. The state’s first attempt, scheduled for November 2022 using lethal injection, was halted when executioners failed to locate suitable intravenous lines for administering the lethal drugs, which left Smith with severe post-traumatic stress.
Elizabeth Bruenig, a staff writer for The Atlantic and an opponent of the death penalty, believes that the abolition of this form of punishment needs to be discussed as a civil rights issue, given the punishment’s disproportionate impact on marginalized groups. After witnessing the first failed execution of Smith in 2022, she wrote that the continuous legality of it, under the name of the American people, “dissolves our rights little by little.”
Despite the previous attempt being the third consecutive failed execution in the state, Alabama did not abolish the death penalty. Instead, the state amended its execution protocol to grant executioners more time to complete the process, a change ratified by the state’s Supreme Court.
For Smith’s second death warrant, Alabama opted for an untested method: nitrogen hypoxia.........