Nine months later, Smith has been singled out for another undesirable distinction. If the state of Alabama has its way, he will be submitted to a method that has never been used for execution and which veterinarians consider unacceptable for animals death by nitrogen gas.
Alabama's attorney general has asked the state supreme court to set a fresh execution date for Smith using the untested system.
The method, known as "nitrogen hypoxia", theoretically works by replacing air with nitrogen, reducing oxygen levels to fatally low levels and leading to suffocation.
Death penalty experts have decried what is in effect a human experiment. The choice of Smith as the first candidate has also been criticised as a double violation of the eighth amendment protection against "cruel and unusual punishments". Smith, 58, was convicted of the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Sennett. He was paid $1,000 to kill her by Sennett's husband, who was in debt and wanted the insurance payout.
At Smith's trial, the jury voted 11-1 for a life sentence, but the judge overruled them and sent him to death row.
In 2022, Smith was one of three Alabama death row inmates involved in catastrophic lethal injection procedures.
Denne historien er fra September 08, 2023-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Denne historien er fra September 08, 2023-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Finn family murals
The optimism that runs through Finnish artist Tove Jansson's Moomin stories also appears in her public works, now on show in a Helsinki exhibition
I hoped Finland would be a progressive dream.I've had to think again Mike Watson
Oulu is five hours north from Helsinki by train and a good deal colder and darker each winter than the Finnish capital. From November to March its 220,000 residents are lucky to see daylight for a couple of hours a day and temperatures can reach the minus 30s. However, this is not the reason I sense a darkening of the Finnish dream that brought me here six years ago.
A surplus of billionaires is destabilising our democracies Zoe Williams
The concept of \"elite overproduction\" was developed by social scientist Peter Turchin around the turn of this century to describe something specific: too many rich people for not enough rich-person jobs.
'What will people think? I don't care any more'
At 90, Alan Bennett has written a sex-fuelled novella set in a home for the elderly. He talks about mourning Maggie Smith, turning down a knighthood and what he makes of the new UK prime minister
I see you
What happens when people with acute psychosis meet the voices in their heads? A new clinical trial reveals some surprising results
Rumbled How Ali ran rings around apartheid, 50 years ago
Fifty years ago, in a corner of white South Africa, Muhammad Ali already seemed a miracle-maker.
Trudeau faces 'iceberg revolt'as calls grow for PM to quit
Justin Trudeau, who promised “sunny ways” as he won an election on a wave of public fatigue with an incumbent Conservative government, is now facing his darkest and most uncertain political moment as he attempts to defy the odds to win a rare fourth term.
Lost Maya city revealed through laser mapping
After swapping machetes and binoculars for computer screens and laser mapping, a team of researchers have discovered a lost Maya city containing temple pyramids, enclosed plazas and a reservoir which had been hidden for centuries by the Mexican jungle.
'A civil war' Gangs step up assault on capital
Armed fighters advance into neighbourhoods at the heart of Port-au-Prince as authorities try to restore order
Reality bites in the Himalayan 'kingdom of happiness'
High emigration and youth unemployment levels belie the mountain nation's global reputation for cheeriness
