US Supreme Court and a federal appeals court both refused to stop the execution of Kenneth Smith, a death row inmate in Alabama, who is slated to become the first person in the world to be put to death with nitrogen gas.
Smith was convicted of a 1988 murder for hire and had previously survived a botched lethal injection in 2022. He had expressed a desire to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia, a method that some experts have criticized as veiled in secrecy and potentially cruel and inhuman.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights also called on Alabama to halt the execution, saying it could amount to torture or other violations of international human rights law.
