Gov. Kay Ivey announces that Kenneth Eugene Smith will be executed on January 26

On Wednesday, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey announced that she had set the timeframe for the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith to occur beginning at midnight on Thursday, January 25, 2024, and expiring by 6:00 a.m. on Friday, January 26, 2024.

Smith was one of two men who were each paid $1000 to kill Elizabeth Sennett on behalf of her husband, a preacher who was deeply in debt and wanted to collect on her life insurance.

The execution will be the first person ever to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia. This is the method previously requested by the inmate as an alternative to lethal injection.

Smith was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection back on September 22, but the state of Alabama called off the execution when Alabama Department of Corrections workers were not able to access Smith’s veins before the deadline passed.

Proponents argue that nitrogen hypoxia is more humane than electrocution or lethal injection.

The Alabama Supreme Court has approved allowing the state to begin executing people by nitrogen hypoxia.

Nitrogen hypoxia is a method of suffocating a person by forcing them to breathe pure nitrogen, starving them of oxygen until they die.

Nitrogen is an inert gas that makes up 78 percent of the air we breathe, passing in and out of the body harmlessly with every breath. A person can breathe pure nitrogen and not immediately realize there is a problem, but their cells and organs are slowly being deprived of the oxygen needed to function and will rapidly start to break down. Someone deprived of oxygen will pass out in minutes and die soon after when the heart stops beating.

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