On the evening of Jan. 25, history was made. Alabama became the first place in the world to execute a person with nitrogen hypoxia. There were concerns beforehand. Kenneth Smith, the man on death row, had petitioned the Supreme Court to stay his execution. His lawyers argued that this form of execution would cause Smith suffering, which would be a violation of the Eighth Amendment and its ban on “cruel and unusual punishments.” Alabama’s lawyers disagreed. They, instead, argued he would be “unconscious in seconds.” The court sided with the latter and let the execution proceed. Instead of being the calm procedure Alabama promised, Smith seemed to remain conscious and thrashed in his restraints while gas was pumped into his lungs. He was pronounced dead at 8:25 p.m. Central Time. What occurred in Alabama should give all of Americans pause to reconsider the role of the death penalty within our justice system.
Why does the death penalty exist? Many people believe it is retribution for heinous crimes such as murder. Supporters, like South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, have drawn on the concept of justice as justification for the death penalty. He stated that it provides “grieving families and loved ones the closure they are rightfully owed.” Other supporters have stated they believe the threat of being charged with the death penalty deters individuals from committing a crime. The death penalty’s current form developed over the course of 20th-century court cases. In 1972, The Supreme Court paused the use of the practice in Furman v. Georgia as the Court’s majority believed existing practices violated the “cruel and unusual punishments” clause of the Eighth Amendment. States reformed their practices to be more “humane,” and the court allowed for executions to begin again in 1977. That same year, the concept of lethal injection was invented in Oklahoma, which was supposed to be a quick and painless death for inmates.
But, when looking at the evidence, there are faults with the process that raise questions about its usefulness. There is no clear evidence that the death penalty is effective in deterring crime. In 2012, the National Research Council formed a committee to research this. They found that the research on the deterrence effect wasn’t strong enough to reach any conclusion regarding the correlation between the existence of the death penalty and crime rates. As of now, the consensus among researchers on the death penalty’s effectiveness as deterrence seems to be a shrug. That isn’t a ringing endorsement. Cost is another issue that should give readers pause. Studies have found that states spend more money on death penalty cases than they do on cases for life sentences. When Maryland had the death penalty, the state found it was spending $3 million on each case, which was three times more compared to non-death penalty cases. Another uncomfortable fact is that many prisoners who had been executed were later found innocent.
The most disturbing part of the death penalty is lethal injection. It promises to be quick and painless, but there is growing evidence that it is extremely painful. Two doctors interviewed by NPR in 2020 found evidence that the lethal cocktail injected into prisoners caused pulmonary edema. Doctors also raised concerns that many of the prisoners were not anesthetized properly. That meant they suffered a slow death of choking on fluid while fully consciousƒ and suffering immense pain. There is an awful irony with lethal injection and now nitrogen gas executions. They claim to be “humane” in concept, but they can’t mask the reality of what is going on: an execution.
Ending the death penalty is not a popular position to take. As of 2023, a Gallup poll found that 53% of Americans are in favor of the death penalty. However, support has consistently trended downward for years. Since 2010, as support has declined, so has the supply of drugs used for the drug cocktail because no American company produces them, and other nations have banned exporting the drugs. As a result, states have had to find different execution methods, with Utah restarting death by firing squad.
Smith was not a good man. He murdered Elizabeth Sennett in 1988 and rightfully spent the rest of his life in jail. And in the 35 years he sat in jail, he never apologized to the Sennett family for what he did. But should he have been used, as Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, as “a guinea pig”? We think not. Alabama became a pioneer on Jan. 25, but not a noble one. The state designed a new way of death, which other states seem to want to copy. While the death penalty may still be sound in the eyes of the Constitution, its continued existence only results in more cruelty.
