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In one of the last interviews he ever did, Kenneth Eugene Smith expressed fear and uncertainty about his upcoming execution and condemned the government for not providing him an opportunity to heal and redeem himself. Yet on Jan. 25, 58-year-old Smith became the first death row inmate to be executed in the United States this year.

Marking Alabama’s second attempt to carry out Smith’s death sentence, Smith was killed 35 years after his conviction for participating in the murder-for-hire of 45-year-old Elizabeth Sennett. The state’s first attempt, scheduled for November 2022 using lethal injection, was halted when executioners failed to locate suitable intravenous lines for administering the lethal drugs, which left Smith with severe post-traumatic stress.

Elizabeth Bruenig, a staff writer for The Atlantic and an opponent of the death penalty, believes that the abolition of this form of punishment needs to be discussed as a civil rights issue, given the punishment’s disproportionate impact on marginalized groups. After witnessing the first failed execution of Smith in 2022, she wrote that the continuous legality of it, under the name of the American people, “dissolves our rights little by little.”

Despite the previous attempt being the third consecutive failed execution in the state, Alabama did not abolish the death penalty. Instead, the state amended its execution protocol to grant executioners more time to complete the process, a change ratified by the state’s Supreme Court.

For Smith’s second death warrant, Alabama opted for an untested method: nitrogen hypoxia. This execution method was previously only used by veterinarians for euthanasia on animals and was outlawed in a 2020 veterinary guideline for inducing distress among certain mammals.

Despite the method being unverified and untested, along with several human rights agencies expressing concern and disapproval, U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker dismissed a preliminary injunction aimed at halting Smith’s execution and a final appeal to the Supreme Court was also denied in a 6-3 decision. Three liberal justices dissented.

After a final visit with his family last Friday, Smith was escorted to the execution chamber at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility. A mask was placed over his face and nitrogen gas began to flow, eventually causing his suffocation due to hypoxia. The execution took 22 minutes and was praised as “humane and effective” by State Attorney General Steve Marshall.

People on different sides of this issue offered their own perspectives for the execution. Mike Sennett, the son of the woman Smith was convicted of killing, didn’t condemn Smith’s execution but agreed that “nothing happened here today that’s going to bring Mom back.” Reverend Jeff Hood, Smith’s spiritual advisor, said “horror is an understatement” after witnessing the entire process, as he described Smith as “struggling for his life.” Justin Mezzola, a researcher for Amnesty International, called Smith’s execution “shameful” and advocated for the abolition of the death penalty altogether due to “systemic flaws in Alabama’s death penalty system.”

In the U.S., the death penalty is a legal penalty at the federal level (currently under a moratorium) and in 27 states. In New York state, capital punishment has been abolished and no executions have taken place since 1963. Although the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily outlawed capital punishment in 1972, citing potential violations of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishments,” it was reinstated in 1976 after a Supreme Court ruling overturned the previous decision.

Lethal injection, the most common execution method, typically involves a combination of an anesthetic barbiturate, a paralytic muscle relaxant to inhibit breathing and potassium chloride to stop the heart. But it faces challenges as many drug manufacturers refuse to allow their products to be used for executions. Other execution methods include firing squads, electrocution and gas chambers, which have all been accused by legal scholars as violations of the Eighth Amendment.

Almost every state that has administered the death penalty in the past decade is under a right-wing, Republican administration; Republicans surveyed also express stronger support for it than Democrats. Overall, the majority of respondents surveyed expressed concerns about its administration, including the potential for executing innocent people, the disproportionate racial distribution of executions between Black and White inmates for similar crimes and its ineffectiveness in deterring serious crimes.

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There have been several notable examples that have casted doubt on the justification behind the death penalty, not only due to the method’s cruelty itself but also the potential innocence or disability of the prisoner. In 2014, Arizona executed Joseph Wood after he was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and the lethal injection execution resulted in him gasping for two hours like a “fish gulping for air.” The execution resulted in the state calling a formal review for the process.

In 2021, Missouri executed Ernest Johnson after he was charged with three counts of murder in the first-degree. Citing Johnson’s intellectual disability, Pope Francis called for clemency on Johnson to no avail. In 2022, in a rare move, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted the execution of Melissa Lucio, who was convicted of killing her infant daughter despite only admitting her responsibility under a duressed interrogation without an attorney present and exculpatory evidence was possibly withheld by the prosecutor at the time.

The death penalty, with its inherent failures in execution administration and the challenge of conclusively establishing guilt under the current system, remains a concerning challenge within the effort to protect human rights. Its irreversible nature not only permanently forecloses any chance of rehabilitation but also represents a fundamental challenge to our collective morality.

The plethora of flaws in the criminal justice system exemplified by these cases have never been adequately addressed by states that continue to practice the death penalty, making the form of punishment a prolonged perpetuation and exacerbation of intersectional inequality in America. No matter how an execution is framed, its very existence as a state-sanctioned act undermines public trust in the justice system.

Allen Huang is a second year Media Studies masters student. He can be reached at xhuang49@syr.edu.

Published on January 28, 2024 at 10:55 pm