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.

  • @[email protected]
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    31 year ago

    No, it’s because opioids aren’t 100% effective at a painless death either. At this stage, no death we know of is truly “painless”. Well, that we can prove anyway. They’ve had patients hooked to brain monitors when they’ve died in their sleep, the brain goes through severe stress at the moment of death. Drowning is meant to be okay, but for obvious reasons, we can’t prove that.

    • @[email protected]
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      101 year ago

      There’s no way drowning is the way to do it… There’s a reason waterboarding is an “effective” means of torture.

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        1 year ago

        Waterboarding isn’t drowning. It’s like mega drowning. Here’s one of many studies done on drowning that shows many people found it kind of calm as they neared death.