Alabama Discovers There Is No 'Humane' Way To Execute Someone

Instead of searching for gentle execution methods, states should just stop killing prisoners.

After executing death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith by the controversial nitrogen hypoxia method in January, Alabama legislators have introduced a bill to ban the practice entirely. Ironically, nitrogen hypoxia—in which a prisoner is killed by being forced to breathe pure nitrogen—was originally introduced in Alabama as a supposedly more humane form of execution than lethal injection.  

The Alabama Legislature passed a bill allowing the state to conduct executions by nitrogen hypoxia in 2018. At the time, the execution method was completely untested—a fact that caused it to quickly become controversial at the same time as Alabama death row inmates clamored to be killed using the hypothetical technique. 

As lethal injection drugs have become increasingly difficult to obtain, alternate drug cocktails have led to a spate of grisly executions nationwide. Alabama in particular has conducted several botched executions in recent years, all stemming from prison officials' inability to correctly place an IV line for lethal injection drugs. 

Smith, who had previously survived a botched lethal injection attempt, was killed by nitrogen hypoxia in January. Smith won the right to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia instead of lethal injection last year, though his lawyers reversed course in a last-minute attempt to save his life, arguing that nitrogen hypoxia would itself be overly cruel. He was the first known person to be killed by nitrogen hypoxia, and witnesses described how Smith "struggled against his restraints" and "shook and writhed on a gurney" as he was dying.

On February 27, state Rep. Neil Rafferty (D–Birmingham), introduced a bill to ban nitrogen hypoxia in Alabama—instead forcing a return to lethal injection in most cases. (Execution by electric chair is technically allowed in Alabama, but inmates are very unlikely to opt into it.)

The legislation, which isn't likely to pass, has been framed by many anti–death penalty advocates as an attempt to remove an inherently cruel execution method.

"I think [the bill] is a valiant attempt to reintroduce a modicum of humanity to Alabama that will most likely fail," Lauren Faraino, founder and director of The Woods Foundation, a criminal justice nonprofit, told the Alabama Reflector this week. "I don't think that any of our politicians have the interest or the courage to reverse what can only be described as torture."

But is it? While nitrogen hypoxia is clearly a terrible way to die, lethal injection executions are also famously cruel—the most popular drug cocktail is known to cause searing, burning pain before killing inmates. A world where death row prisoners are not able to opt into nitrogen hypoxia is not obviously one where Alabama is less cruel in how it executes inmates sentenced to die.

While horror at the gruesome nature of nitrogen hypoxia executions is understandable, the back-and-forth on the method—first hailed as more "humane" and then as cruel— shows an unfortunate truth: As it turns out, there's not really a gentle way to kill someone. 

If Alabama legislators actually want to stop killing death row prisoners in hideous ways, then they should consider not killing them at all.