An Alabama inmate would be the test subject for the “experimental” execution method of nitrogen hypoxia, his lawyers argued, as they asked judges to deny the state’s request to carry out his death sentence using the new method.
In a Friday court filing, attorneys for Kenneth Eugene Smith asked the Alabama Supreme Court to reject the state attorney general’s request to set an execution date for Smith using the proposed new execution method. Nitrogen gas is authorized as an execution method in three states but it has never been used to put an inmate to death.
Smith’s attorneys argued the state has disclosed little information about how nitrogen executions would work, releasing only a redacted copy of the proposed protocol.
I absolutely agree with you in the first point, but I think there are cases where person really doesn’t have the capacity, or we don’t want to try it. I think of mass murderers or child murderers or something like that. People who are going to spend their whole life in jail with life-sentence with no way of ever getting out and who cost the state money and are the reason why some people want death sentence back in my country for example. The first point still applies however and there are cases of people getting out of jail after ten or fifteen years when new evidence is discovered.