MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed a motion with the state Supreme Court seeking a scheduled execution date for the man found guilty in the murder-for-hire slaying of a Sheffield woman.
Kenneth Eugene Smith was due to be executed in November 2022 by lethal injection when it was called off at the last minute. A divided 11th Circuit panel stayed the execution after Smith raised concerns about previous lethal injections in the state and suggested nitrogen hypoxia as an available alternative method. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor on the matter.
Attorney General Marshall said in his legal filing on Friday that "Smith has fully exhausted his appeals" over the past three decades, and "it is time for his death sentence to be carried out." The filing indicates that the state is prepared to execute Smith using the nitrogen hypoxia method. The disclosure is expected to set off a new round of legal battles over the constitutionality of the method.
Nitrogen hypoxia is caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen and causing them to pass out and die, according to the theory. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen.
Critics have likened the untested method to human experimentation.
Alabama authorized nitrogen hypoxia in 2018 but the state has not attempted to use it until now to carry out a death sentence. Oklahoma and Mississippi have also authorized nitrogen hypoxia.
Alabama has been working for several years to develop the execution method, but has disclosed little about the proposal. The attorney general's court filing did not disclose the details of the how the execution would be carried out. Corrections Commissioner John Hamm told reporters last month that a protocol was nearly complete.
Marshall went on to say in a public statement that "It is a travesty that Kenneth Smith has been able to avoid his death sentence for nearly 35 years." He said he hopes that the execution, once carried out, finally brings justice and peace to the family of Elizabeth Sennett.
Elizabeth Sennett was punched, beaten, bludgeoned, and stabbed 10 times in March of 1988. Investigators found Sennett's husband, the Rev. Charles Sennett - then-pastor of the Westside Church of Christ - paid Smith and another man to carry out the killing. Prosecutors said the reverend's motives were financial in nature.
Smith was tried in 1989 and again in 1996, and was convicted by a jury at each trial.
