American State Executes Inmate by Nitrogen Asphyxiation

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey announced that prison officials executed Kenneth Smith, a convicted murderer, on Thursday evening, using nitrogen asphyxiation for the first time. The state presents this method as a simpler alternative to lethal injection, describing its new protocol as "the most humane and least painful method of execution known to mankind." United Nations human rights experts and Smith's lawyers, who previously survived an attempted execution by lethal injection, sought to prevent this, pointing out that the method is fraught with risks and could cause pain during death or injure the condemned without leading to their death.