Death by nitrogen: Why this Alabama execution is polarising

Others, however, were stinging in their criticism, saying that the method is cruel and inhumane — quite opposite to what the method’s champions claimed. Here is a deeper dive.

The simple science behind nitrogen hypoxia

Smith, 58, was fastened to a gurney and forced to breathe pure nitrogen. In its court filings, the state of Alabama said that a “NIOSH-approved Type-C full facepiece supplied air respirator” — a type used in industrial settings to deliver life-preserving oxygen — was used to deliver the nitrogen.

Now, we breathe nitrogen all the time. In fact, the colourless and odourless gas makes up up 78 per cent of the air inhaled by humans. Clearly, the gas itself is harmless. But what this execution does is force the inmate to breathe in pure nitrogen and nothing else. This deprives the body of oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions and ultimately causes death.

The Alabama attorney general’s office had told a federal judge that the nitrogen gas will “cause unconsciousness within seconds, and cause death within minutes.”

A ‘botched’ execution?

The execution, however, took roughly 22 minutes, and onlookers were left distressed by what they saw.

The Montgomery Advertiser reported that between 7.57pm local time and 8.01pm, “Smith writhed and convulsed on the gurney. He took deep breaths, his body shaking violently with his eyes rolling in the back of his head … Smith clenched his fists, his legs shook … He seemed to be gasping for air. The gurney shook several times.”

Smith’s spiritual adviser, the Rev Jeff Hood described the execution as “the most horrible thing” he had ever seen. “What we saw was minutes of someone struggling for their life,” Hood said.

Nonetheless, Alabama state representatives stated that “nothing out of the ordinary” took place. “There was some involuntary movement and some agonal breathing, so that was all expected and is in the side effects that we’ve seen and researched on nitrogen hypoxia,” state corrections commissioner John Hamm said in a press conference after the execution. “So nothing was out of the ordinary of what we were expecting,” he said.

Agonal breathing is a serious medical sign that indicates someone is not getting enough oxygen and is, thus, close to death. It is not “true breathing” but rather a reflex gasp triggered by the brain in a desperate attempt to get oxygen.

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Legal and ethical questions

Smith’s lawyers, till the very end, attempted to stop the execution from taking place. They contended that the state was making Smith a test subject for an experimental execution method that could violate the US constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

“There is little research regarding death by nitrogen hypoxia. When the State is considering using a novel form of execution that has never been attempted anywhere, the public has an interest in ensuring the State has researched the method adequately and established procedures to minimise the pain and suffering of the condemned person,” Smith’s attorneys said in a statement, according to The AP.

However, federal courts rejected the bid to block the execution, with the latest ruling coming Thursday evening from the US Supreme Court. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who along with two other liberal justices dissented, wrote, “Having failed to kill Smith on its first attempt, Alabama has selected him as its ‘guinea pig’ to test a method of execution never attempted before. The world is watching.”

Smith, 58, had previously survived a botched execution attempt using lethal injection in 2022. He was sentenced to death for his role in a 1988 contract-killing.

Death penalty in the US

The death penalty is a highly charged political issue in the United States, drawing polarised responses from people. Proponents argue that it is a just retribution for certain heinous crimes, and provides closure for victims’ families. They say that it also acts as a deterrent for potential criminals from committing certain heinous offences.

There is no evidence, however, of capital punishment acting as a deterrent at all. According to the United States’ National Academy of Sciences, “Research on the deterrent effect of capital punishment is uninformative about whether capital punishment increases, decreases, or has no effect on homicide rates.” In fact, recent research, funded by the US Department of Justice, has found that increasing severity of punishment has no deterrence value.

With regards to the ‘just retribution’ argument, critics counter by saying that there is always a risk of a wrongful prosecution, and in general, studies have shown significant racial and economic bias when it comes to capital punishment.

Then there is the separate question of the method of death penalty. Constitutionally speaking, state-sanctioned executions must be as painless and comfortable as possible. There is, however, no silver bullet to achieve this outcome.

The most common method, lethal injection, has been mired in controversy in recent years, from botched executions to non-availability. In a typical three-injection protocol, a person can die as quickly as 30 to 60 seconds after the final fatal injection, a CNN report stated. But the process is far from reliable. In 2014, for example, an Oklahoma inmate had an apparent heart attack 43 minutes after receiving the first injection.

Currently, capital punishment is legal in 27 of 50 US states. However, in 7 of these states, executions have been paused. Executions have also been paused at the federal level, although the US military, with its own justice system, retains the death penalty.

(With inputs from The Associated Press)