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<\/p>\nA DEATH row inmate who previously survived a botched execution has now been given a new date to be put to death using a grisly untested method. <\/p>\n
Kenneth Eugene Smith, who pulled through a capital punishment by lethal injection last year, will now be executed on January 25 using nitrogen gas. <\/p>\n
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Smith was one of two men convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of Elizabeth Sennett in northwestern Alabama.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors reported Smith and his partner in crime were paid $1,000 to kill Sennett on behalf of her pastor husband, who was deeply in debt and wanted to collect on insurance.<\/p>\n
Her husband took his own life a week later.<\/p>\n
While the other convict was executed in 2010,Alabama Governor Kay Ivey announced on Wednesday the new date to put Smith to death using the previously untested method. <\/p>\n
In a written statement, Ivey's spokesperson Gina Maiola said: "The execution will be carried out by nitrogen hypoxia, the method previously requested by the inmate as an alternative to lethal injection."<\/p>\n Last week, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the court decision had "cleared the way" for Smith's execution by nitrogen hypoxia.<\/p>\n He described how Sennett's family has "waited an unconscionable 35 years to see justice served."<\/p>\n The untested method of execution, if successful, will make Alabama the first US state to attempt an execution by nitrogen gas.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n However, there is a legal fight going on against what is being described as a "human experiment" on the convict. <\/p>\n Smith's attorney \u00a0Robert Grass on Thursday filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to stop the execution.<\/p>\n He said: "Alabama is attempting to make my client the test subject for this novel and experimental method.<\/p>\n "The never-before-used method is unwarranted – and the protocol has never been fully disclosed to him or his counsel. <\/p>\n "We remain hopeful that those who review this case will see how this method is unjust."<\/p>\n Theorised to be a painless execution method by the proponents, death by nitrogen hypoxia is authorised in three states – Alabama, Oklahoma, and Mississippi – but has never been used. <\/p>\n Death row inmates like Smith would be forced to breathe pure nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen until they die.<\/p>\n Although nitrogen makes up 78 per cent of the air we inhale, it is harmless when combined with oxygen.<\/p>\n Prisoners are reportedly likely to be restrained and possibly sedated, before being gassed and falling unconscious.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/newspress-collage-23690212-1693318436621.jpg\")
<\/picture>LAST BREATH <\/span><\/p>\nGrisly new execution method that starves inmates of oxygen set to be used in US<\/h3>\n
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