On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal from the state of Alabama in its case against a death row inmate who sued for the right to be executed by gas rather than lethal injection. The ruling is the latest development following a string of failed and botched executions in Alabama—one of which the suing prisoner actually survived.
In 1996, Kenneth Eugene Smith was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Sennett in Sheffield, Alabama. Despite the jury voting 11-1 to sentence Smith to life in prison, a judge overruled the jury and sentenced Smith to die. (Alabama became the final state to outlaw judicial overrides in 2017.)
