U.S. Supreme Court declines to stop first nitrogen gas execution

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court denied Kenneth Smith’s request to halt his execution via nitrogen hypoxia. The justices gave no reason for the denial and none dissented. Smith was originally scheduled to be executed in 2022 by lethal injection, but the officials were unable to insert an intravenous line before his death warrant expired. He is now scheduled to be executed with a mask within a 30-hour window that begins on Thursday. It would be the first time anyone on Death Row has been executed using the nitrogen hypoxia method. In his appeal, Smith’s lawyers argued that the act of trying to execute Smith a second time after a previously botched execution would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

What was Smith’s crime? In 1988, he was hired with two other men on behalf of an Alabama pastor to murder his wife for insurance money. One of the men, John Forrest Parker, was executed via lethal injection in 2010.

Dig deeper: Read Allie Beth Stuckey’s column in WORLD Opinions on the justice of the death penalty.