Death Penalty Action

A federal judge refused to stop an upcoming nitrogen gas execution in Alabama saying the inmate was unlikely to prevail on claims that the method, which has been used multiple times, is unconstitutionally cruel. Chief U.S District Judge Emily Marks declined a request from Anthony Boyd to block his scheduled October 23rd execution.

Six families, who had loved ones die in the state prison system, have filed lawsuits against the commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections and others, saying their family members' bodies were returned to them missing internal organs after undergoing state-ordered autopsies. The families crowded into a Montgomery courtroom Tuesday for a brief status conference in the consolidated litigation.

Alabama is preparing to use a new method of execution: nitrogen gas. Kenneth Eugene Smith, who survived the state's previous attempt to put him to death by lethal injection in 2022, is scheduled to be put to death Thursday by nitrogen hypoxia. If carried out, it would the first new method of execution since lethal injection was introduced in 1982.

The United Nations is expressing alarm over this month’s planned execution of Kenneth Smith. The death row inmate is scheduled to die by what’s called nitrogen hypoxia. Smith’s execution would be the first of its kind in the nation.

James Barber will be Alabama’s first death row inmate set for execution since last year.