Alabama death penalty

A man put to death using nitrogen gas shook and convulsed for minutes on the gurney as Alabama carried out the first-of-its-kind execution that has ignited debate over the humaneness of the method.

Alabama is just over a day away from the first ever execution using nitrogen gas. Kenneth Eugene Smith is on death row for the murder for hire of a preacher’s wife in 1988. The State wants to use a face mask on the inmate to pump in nitrogen until he dies of suffocation. Alabama claims the process is painless. The non-profit, non-partisan, criminal justice journalism organization The Marshall Project calls it experimental.

The United Nations is expressing alarm over this month’s planned execution of Kenneth Smith. The death row inmate is scheduled to die by what’s called nitrogen hypoxia. Smith’s execution would be the first of its kind in the nation.

A lawsuit filed by lawyers for a spiritual adviser to an Alabama inmate scheduled to be executed with nitrogen gas next month say that restrictions on how close the adviser can get to the inmate in the death chamber are “hostile to religion.”

Lawyers for the first inmate scheduled to be put to death with nitrogen gas argued in Monday court filings that Alabama is seeking to make him the "test case" for an experimental execution method and asked a federal judge to the block the January execution.

Alabama executed a man on Friday for the 2001 beating death of a woman as the state resumed lethal injections after failed executions prompted the governor to order an internal review of procedures.

A federal appeals court refused to stop an upcoming execution in Alabama, rejecting an inmate's argument that the state has a history of botched lethal injections. James Barber is scheduled to be put to death tonight at a south Alabama prison, in the first execution scheduled in the state since Gov. Kay Ivey paused them in November for an internal review.

Attorneys for an Alabama inmate on death row asked a federal appeals court Monday to block his upcoming execution, arguing the state has a history of troubled lethal injections.

The U.S. Supreme Court has sided with Alabama death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith, who requested he be put to death by nitrogen hypoxia when executed.

Alabama advocacy groups are calling for more reform as the state wraps up an investigation on capital punishment.