Alabama intends to strap Kenneth Smith to a gurney Thursday and use a gas mask to replace breathable air with nitrogen, depriving him of oxygen, in the nation’s first execution attempt using the method.
“What effect the condemned person will feel from the nitrogen gas itself, no one knows,” Dr. Jeffrey Keller, president of the American College of Correctional Physicians, told the Associated Press by email. “This has never been done before. It is an experimental procedure.”
Nitrogen, a colourless, odourless gas, makes up 78 per cent of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when breathed with proper levels of
