Kenneth Eugene Smith is scheduled to die by nitrogen hypoxia on Thursday
Alabama death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith will apparently get no 11th-hour reprieve as the U.S. Supreme Court was the latest, and last, to deny a stay of execution .
He’s now scheduled to be the nation’s first execution by using nitrogen hypoxia on Thursday.
Smith went to the death chamber in 2022 for his role in a murder-for-hire plot of the wife of an Alabama preacher. His death didn’t happen that day as executioners were unable to find a vein to administer a lethal injection despite multiple attempts to insert an intravenous line into his arms, hands and even a vein near Smith’s heart.
A second attempt would happen, but Smith had another option for dying, rather than the way typically carried out among U.S. states that allowed executing criminals.
“Nitrogen hypoxia is the method previously requested by the inmate as an alternative to lethal injection,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said. “This method has been thoroughly vetted, and both the Alabama Department of Corrections and the Attorney General’s Office have indicated it is ready to go.”