USA: Further information: Alabama conducts first nitrogen gas execution

Kenneth Smith, 58, was executed in Alabama on 25 January 2024, pronounced dead at 8.25pm local time. This was the state’s second attempt to execute him, the first attempt by lethal injection in 2022 having failed. This time, the state used the new method of nitrogen hypoxia. He was sentenced to death at a 1996 retrial after a judge overrode the jury’s vote for life imprisonment without parole. The courts and the governor declined to intervene.

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