CNN: Alabama on Thursday night executed Kenneth Smith, the first death row inmate known to die by nitrogen gas, marking the emergence of a wholly new method of execution in the United States that experts have said could lead to excessive pain or even torture. Smith, who was sentenced to death for his role in a 1988 murder for hire, had survived the state’s initial attempt to execute him by lethal injection in 2022. Earlier Thursday, the US Supreme Court denied his last-minute appeal to halt the execution, after declining the same request on Wednesday. Smith’s time of death was 8:25 p.m. local time, officials announced. In a news conference after the execution, Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said nitrogen was running for about 15 minutes. In a joint report, witnesses from the media said Smith made a lengthy statement before he died, saying, “Tonight Alabama caused humanity to take a step backward,” and adding, “I’m leaving with love, peace and light, thank you for supporting me, love all of you.” Smith appeared conscious for “several minutes into the execution,” and for two minutes after that, he “shook and writhed on a gurney,” according to the media witness report. That was followed by several minutes of deep breathing before his breath began slowing “until it was no longer perceptible for media witnesses.” When asked at the news conference about Smith shaking during the start of the execution, Hamm said Smith appeared to be holding his breath “for as long as he could” and may have also “struggled against his restraints.” “There was some involuntary movement and some agonal breathing, so that was all expected and is in the side effects that we’ve seen and researched on nitrogen hypoxia,” Hamm added. “So nothing was out of the ordinary of what we were expecting.” Agonal breathing is usually described as a kind of gasping seen in people who are dying. Another witness, Smith’s spiritual adviser who’d previously expressed concern that the method could be inhumane, described the death in more graphic terms, saying it was “the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen.” #capitalpunishment #kennethsmith #alabama #crime #punishment