Attorneys for Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, filed an amended lawsuit challenging the proposed new execution method as a potential violation of the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. They asked a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction to block the execution from going forward next year.
“There is sparse research on how long a human must be exposed to 100% pure nitrogen to cause death, what happens if a human is exposed to less than 100% pure nitrogen for a prolonged period of time, or on the pain or sensations that a human exposed to nitrogen might experience,” his attorneys wrote in the amended lawsuit filed Monday.
They noted in the filing that the American Veterinary Medical Association wrote in 2020 euthanasia guidelines that nitrogen hypoxia is an acceptable method of euthanasia for pigs but not other mammals because it could create an “anoxic environment that is distressing for some species.”
I think if the legal injection went exactly as planned, it would be painless. But that gets botched all the time.
Fun fact, this same inmate was spared last November because they couldn’t find a vein. He’s a prime candidate for lethal injection going wrong. It’s part of the reason they wanted to use nitrogen toxicity.
Not toxicity, but asphyxiation. Nitrogen’s harmless, but you need oxygen and will sleep fast if you don’t get it.
States no longer have access to the drugs used in lethal injection because the suppliers didnt want to be associated with all that. IIRC one state tried their own cocktail of drugs recently and it went horribly wrong.
It goes exactly as planned. It’s agony, and the prescribed under dosage of the anesthesia ensures it.