There are contrasting accounts of the first US execution by nitrogen gas, but most witnesses agreed on one thing: It did not go as Alabama had promised.
When Alabama conducted the first known execution using nitrogen gas last week, the world was watching — in a figurative sense.
Only a small group of witnesses actually watched Kenneth Smith die on a gurney in an execution chamber in rural Alabama, an execution that state officials described as a model for other states looking for alternatives to lethal injection.
The witnesses offered a range of descriptions on what exactly occurred in the 22 minutes during which curtains were drawn back on the death chamber — allowing them to watch as a man, strapped to a gurney, struggled through the last minutes of his life.
Smith was one of three men convicted of murder in the 1988 stabbing death of Elizabeth Sennett, whose husband had hired the men to kill her. Smith had already survived one failed execution, in November 2022, when executioners spent hours trying to access a vein to inject him with lethal drugs.
He was “terrified” of the nitrogen execution, according to a man who spent time with him in recent months as a spiritual adviser, the Reverend Jeff Hood.
Lawyers for the state had asserted in court papers that the use of nitrogen gas, pumped into a mask, would render Smith unconscious within seconds and then kill him. But a week after the execution, most witnesses who have spoken publicly said Smith remained conscious for several minutes, and many described it as a profoundly disturbing event.
As several states begin considering laws to adopt the use of nitrogen gas in their executions, here are the accounts of some of those who witnessed the first one.
Kenneth Smith is led into the execution chamber
The US Supreme Court allowed the execution to proceed shortly before 7pm local time, and Smith was taken to the execution chamber.
The only public account of what took place in the chamber before the curtains were opened has come from Hood, who entered when summoned by prison officials and then largely remained with Smith.
When we were waiting to enter the execution chamber, the corrections officer kept banging on the door. She told me, “He’s resisting.” When I walk in, the entire execution squad is in the execution chamber, which I’ve never seen before. Kenny said something like, “I’m giving them hell.” They have to strap him down, and obviously, if you resist that, that’s not going to be an easy thing to do.
Hood said he anointed Smith’s head with oil as he lay on the gurney. Then, Hood was led back outside briefly while Smith was fitted with the mask.
We go in again and as soon as I get in there, he’s trying to comfort me. … He kept on saying, “I’ve got this, I’ve got this, I’ve got this.” … He kept on talking about his “release date” — that today was his release date — that he was free and that he’s out of there.
Hood began to read Bible passages to Smith, and said he responded energetically after nearly every line.
I would say, “The Lord is my shepherd,” and he would say, “Damn right!” When I’m reading, “You who are without sin shall cast the first stone,” he looks at the guards and says, “You know he’s talking to y’all?” I think he saw that as his final resistance.
It was only moments before the execution would begin.
When he was in the chamber, before they opened the curtains, he was bouncing his head around, as if he was listening to music.
The execution begins
Marty Roney, a longtime reporter for The Montgomery Advertiser, had witnessed two previous executions. This time, he said, the dimly lit viewing room had a strong scent of disinfectant as five journalists and Smith’s family members were led in. His job, in part, would be to keep track of the elapsed time, if he could.
The room is probably 8 by 12 (feet), with 13 folding chairs — it’s tight. There is a large glass window in front of the media room that lets you look into the death chamber. The five of us (reporters) decided to divvy up duties. … My job was, if I found the clock, I would keep the clock.
In another witness room sat two sons of the murder victim, Mike and Chuck Sennett, as well as their wives, a friend and another relative of Elizabeth Sennett’s.
Mike Sennett said there were also two people he did not know; he thought they were prison officials from another state. In 2010, the family attended the lethal injection execution of John Parker, who was also convicted in his mother’s murder.
We went down for the Parker execution and it was like him going to sleep. We didn’t know what to expect with this. My anxiety was just building all day long, wondering what’s going to happen.
Kim Chandler, a reporter with The Associated Press, wrote an account of what she saw when the curtains were pulled back at 7:53pm.
Smith, wearing a tan prison uniform, was already strapped to the gurney and draped in a white sheet. A blue-rimmed respirator mask covered his face from forehead to chin. It had a clear face shield and plastic tubing that appeared to connect through an opening to the adjoining control room.
Another media witness, Ralph Chapoco of The Alabama Reflector, wrote that Smith seemed to be trying to reassure his relatives.
From the moment the curtain opened and throughout the time that corrections staff read the death warrant, Kenneth Eugene Smith never took his eyes off his supporters or the members of his family. … He scanned their faces one by one, smiled at each of them and several times made a sign with his fingers which meant “I love you.” He would look into the eyes of one person, smile, then move onto the next person, smile and then move on to the next person.
The gas begins flowing
Smith remained conscious for several minutes, according to the five media witnesses, including Roney.
For four minutes, he was gasping for air. He appeared to be conscious. He was convulsing, he was writhing, the gurney was shaking noticeably.
Roney said that he tried to count the seconds between Smith’s gasps.
We’re not allowed watches. There is no second hand on the clock. It’s a digital clock that’s on military time. I’m sitting there, “one Mississippi, two Mississippi,” between his breaths.
He said the execution was vastly different from the two he had witnessed before.
The two lethal injections I saw, I saw very little physical movement after we believe the process began. Their head goes down, their eyes roll in the back of their head, and then you look for the chest to stop working. You can always fool yourself in that situation into thinking you’re watching someone fall asleep. But there was no mistaking this for what it was.
John Hamm, the commissioner of Alabama’s prison system, said at a news conference that he believed Smith had tried to hold his breath when the nitrogen started flowing, potentially prolonging the process.
It appeared that, one, Smith was holding his breath as long as he could. And then there’s also information out there, he struggled against his restraints a little bit but there was some involuntary movement and some agonal breathing. So, that was all expected and is in the side effects that we’ve seen or researched on nitrogen hypoxia. So, nothing was out of the ordinary of what we were expecting.
The media witnesses said Smith’s breathing was no longer visible at 8:08pm.
In the room where the Sennett family was seated, there was near silence, Mike Sennett said, as they watched Smith convulse. Sennett said he, too, believed that Smith had initially tried to hold his breath. As Smith continued to shake, Sennett said he began to think, “How long is this going to take?”
We were told by some people that worked (in the prison system) that he’d take two or three breaths and he’d be out and gone. That ain’t what happened. After about two or three breaths, that’s when the struggling started. Other people kept saying he was trying to raise himself up. Yeah, he was. I’d probably try and do the same, try and get off the table.
Sennett said he has been unable to get the violence of Smith’s last moments out of his mind.
With all that struggling and jerking and trying to get off that table, more or less, it’s just something I don’t ever want to see again.
The curtains close
The curtains to the media witness room were closed at 8:15pm.
Sennett had jotted down some notes for a brief address but, overwhelmed with emotions and without his glasses, he said he struggled to read from them. The family wasn’t celebrating, he told reporters; they were just glad the execution had finally happened, after more than 35 years. He later said that he meant to say more about feeling sorry for the Smith family and their loss.
Chapoco found it difficult to turn to the task of writing an article.
Trauma has a way of playing tricks on a person’s mind. I knew what I experienced. I could even visualise it. For some reason, however, I could not string a series of coherent thoughts together. … Frankly, I underestimated the impact (the) execution would have, believing I could place it in the back of my mind.
Roney said a rush of adrenaline helped him to focus and type up his story.
Once the whistle blows, you do your job. When the curtain opened up, you don’t really have time to — you take it all in — but you don’t have time to let it affect you. I have a job to do. I’m thinking, “Don’t screw it up. Am I seeing what I think I see?” And then you’re in the media room and you’re on deadline and it’s all business.
Later, there was a news conference in the hotel lobby of a Holiday Inn Express with Hood and two death penalty opponents. Joining them was Smith’s wife, Deanna Smith, who married him while he was in prison in 2021. She wore a shirt that said, “Never Alone” and described the painful experience of watching her husband die.
Tonight, I watched my husband jerk and convulse and gasp for air for at least 10 minutes.
She said it was difficult to sit in the same room with reporters who were focused on chronicling the moment.
They put the media in that room with us, our family. And while our son was crying, having just watched his father take his last gasp for air, the media is sitting behind us, shuffling papers and talking about time. My question to you guys is, where’s the humanity? Where’s the compassion? Where’s love and forgiveness?
When Sennett returned to his hotel — the same one — he was stunned to see the news conference in the lobby.
When we come back to the hotel, the guy said, “They’re having a big rally in there.” We just sat there and listened, and about half of what he said had really happened. They played it up pretty good. Wasn’t expecting that.
Afterward, Sennett met one of Smith’s sons. They wound up embracing.
He just more or less said that he’d been waiting a long time to meet us and tell us he’s very sorry. I told him: “You were a baby back then. You had nothing to do with it. Your family had nothing to do with it. We don’t blame any of y’all. We blame Kenneth Smith.”
Sennett said that over the years, he had been most bothered by how long it took Alabama to carry out the execution, and the fact that Smith never wrote an apology to the family.
We did not get a letter of apology in 35 years. That’s all we wanted. His spiritual adviser told us that he tried to get that out of him, and he would not say it. So good riddance to you. That’s all we wanted was that letter of apology. That’ll stay with me for a long time.
As the night wore on, people began to return to their hotel rooms. Unable to sleep, Roney said he poured himself a drink and watched television.
All of a sudden it’s over with and done, but there’s no way you can go to bed for two hours because you can’t switch it off like that. … This one has stuck with me. When I drove home, about an hour and a half away, my wife gave me a kiss on the cheek and said, “Was it bad?” and I said, “Uh-huh.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs
Photographs by: Edmund D. Fountain
©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES
