A prisoner from Alabama has become the first inmate in the US to be executed using nitrogen gas, after losing his last-minute appeal.
The convicted murderer, Kenneth Eugene Smith, was officially executed at 8.25pm on Thursday (2.25am UK time).
Smith was the first to be put to death using this method. It involves pumping nitrogen gas through an industrial-type respirator mask. Critics have called it inhumane.
Witnesses said he appeared to shake and writhe for at least two minutes, sometimes pulling against the restraints. There were also several minutes of heavy breathing until his breathing came to a halt. The execution took about 22 minutes.
In a final statement, Smith said: "Tonight Alabama causes humanity to take a step backwards... I'm leaving with love, peace and light."
He made the 'I love you sign' toward his wife and other family members who were witnesses. "Thank you for supporting me. Love, love all of you," Smith said.
Reverend Jeff Hood, who witnessed the execution, Alabama's predictions of a quick death were wrong.
"We didn't see somebody go unconscious in 30 seconds. What we saw was minutes of someone struggling for their life," he said.
"Heaving back and forth, we saw spit, we saw all sorts of stuff develop from the mask. The mask was tied to the gurney, ripping his head back and forth over and over again."
The 58-year-old’s lawyers had previously pleaded with the US Supreme Court to intervene, saying the execution method is “a novel method of execution that has never been attempted by any state or the federal government". The court rejected the appeal on Wednesday.
Smith previously faced a botched lethal injection execution in 2022, after staff failed to find a suitable vein to inject him.
His lawyers said the experience has “exposed him to the severe mental anguish of a mock execution".
Smith was convicted in 1989 of murdering a preacher’s wife.
Last year, a woman in Singapore became the first prisoner there to be hanged in almost 20 years, after she was convicted of trafficking 30g of heroin, according to Transformative Justice Collective (TSJ), an activist group based in the south-east Asian city-state.
Saridewi binte Djamani claimed she was unable to give accurate statements to the police because she suffered from symptoms of drug withdrawal, but the judge dismissed this, according to TSJ.
Ms Djamani was hanged on July 28 last year. This made her the 15th person executed for drug offences in Singapore since March 2022, when the country resumed hangings.
At the time, human rights groups called for Singapore to "consign the death penalty to the history books".
The death penalty is illegal in the UK and nobody has been executed here for nearly 60 years.
However, Tory MP Lee Anderson spoke out in support of the death penalty earlier this year, in an interview given days before he was appointed deputy chair of the Conservative Party, a post he recently resigned from.
Capital punishment is still used in other countries, mostly in the Middle East, but the number of countries that permit the death penalty has decreased steadily since the 1970s.
Which US states have the death penalty?
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there are 27 US states that still use the death penalty:
Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Indiana
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Wyoming
When did the death penalty become illegal in the UK?
The death penalty was only officially made illegal in 1998. But the last people to be sentenced to death in the UK were executed in 1964, according to the Museum of London.
In the 18th century, people could be executed for committing more than 200 crimes, including non-violent offences.
In the late 18th century and the early 19th century, the death penalty began to be reformed, with the prison system becoming an alternative.
The number of crimes someone could be sentenced to death for also decreased and public executions were banned.
The death penalty was nearly abolished before the Second World War, but it wasn’t until 1965 that it was suspended, initially for five years and then permanently.
Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans were the last people to be executed in the UK, on August 13, 1964. It was officially made illegal in the UK in 1998.
Where is the death penalty legal?
More and more countries have abolished the death penalty in recent years, but it is still legal in a number of places.
According to an Amnesty report from 2021, the death penalty is still legal in 55 territories. However, only 18 countries are known to have executed people in 2021.
That year, most known executions took place in China, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.
The death penalty is also legal in around half the states in the US, and a number of countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The only country that allows the death penalty in Europe is Belarus.
In some countries, people can be executed for crimes including murder, drug-related offenses, rape, corruption, homosexuality, and treason.
The methods of execution that are used today include lethal injection, hanging, shooting, and beheading.
In some countries, including Russia, the death penalty is technically legal but hasn’t been used in more than 10 years.
Opposition to the death penalty
Amnesty International is against the death penalty and has been campaigning to abolish it for more than 40 years.
October 10 is World Day Against the Death Penalty, which “unifies the global abolitionist movement and mobilises civil society, political leaders, lawyers, public opinion, and more to support the call for universal abolition of capital punishment.”
In the wake of Lee Anderson’s comments, MPs spoke out against the death penalty.
Labour MP Chris Bryant said: “The death penalty doesn’t work. It makes juries reluctant to convict, so guilty parties get off.
“DNA and CCTV may establish someone’s presence at the scene but not their intent or the full picture. We now know conclusively of cases of false convictions and executions.”
The death penalty doesn’t work. It makes juries reluctant to convict so guilty parties get off. DNA and CCTV may establish someone’s presence at the scene but not their intent or the full picture. We now know conclusively of cases of false convictions and executions.
— Chris Bryant (@RhonddaBryant) February 9, 2023
Labour MP Richard Burgon said: “So the Tory Party Deputy Chair is calling for the return of the death penalty.
“That means innocent people being killed by the State as has happened time and time again.
“Another sick example of the Tories whipping up every reactionary idea to try to distract from their failures.”
So the Tory Party Deputy Chair is calling for the return of the death penalty.
— Richard Burgon MP (@RichardBurgon) February 9, 2023
That means innocent people being killed by the State as has happened time and time again.
Another sick example of the Tories whipping up every reactionary idea to try to distract from their failures.
