Attorneys for an inmate are asking the Alabama Supreme Court to reject the state's request to set an execution date for him using the new execution method of nitrogen hypoxia.
Under the proposed method, hypoxia would be caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions and causing them to die. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen. While proponents of the new method have theorized it would be painless, opponents have likened it to human experimentation.
His attorneys said Smith has ongoing appeals and accused the state of trying to move Smith to “the front of the line” ahead of other inmates in order to moot Smith’s lawsuit challenging lethal injection procedures. Trip Pittman, the former Alabama state senator who proposed the new execution method, has disputed criticism that the method is experimental. He said that while no state has carried out a death sentence with nitrogen, people have died by breathing nitrogen during industrial accidents and suicide attempts, so the effects are known.
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