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<\/p>\nA US state is looking to introduce a brutal new execution method using nitrogen gas.<\/p>\n
Alabama is set to use the method of making death row inmates breathe pure nitrogen for the first time.<\/p>\n
Although approved in three states, the method is yet to be tried in any US state.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Youngest-ever murderer in Australia to be released after killing toddler aged just 13<\/b><\/p>\n
On Friday (August 25), the Supreme Court was asked by the office of Alabama Attorney-General Steve Marshall for permission for a date to be set for the killing of Kenneth Eugene Smith, a 58-year-old inmate.<\/p>\n
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He was one of two arrested and sentenced for the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of the wife of a preacher.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Marshall said: \u201cIt is a travesty that Kenneth Smith has been able to avoid his death sentence for nearly 35 years after being convicted of the heinous murder-for-hire slaying of an innocent woman, Elizabeth Sennett.\u201d<\/p>\n
The brain would be deprived of oxygen by the introduction of Nitrogen hypoxia, authorised by Alabama in 2018, which will then kill the person made to breathe it.<\/p>\n
The method is also authorised in Oklahoma and Mississippi and was brought in during a shortage of the drugs used for lethal injections.<\/p>\n
Nitrogen is harmless when breathed in conjunction with oxygen, which is roughly 78% of the air we breathe.<\/p>\n
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Debate remains around the use of the method, with those in favour of it claiming it would be painless.<\/p>\n
Those on the other side have argued that the people it will be used on are being experimented on.<\/p>\n
Legal battles are expected to be sparked over the constitutionality of the move.<\/p>\n
Anti-death penalty group The Equal Justice Initiative said Alabama had a history of, \u201cfailed and flawed executions and execution attempts\u201d and \u201cexperimenting with a never before used method is a terrible idea".<\/p>\n
The group\u2019s senior attorney Angie Setzer said: \u201cNo state in the country has executed a person using nitrogen hypoxia and Alabama is in no position to experiment with a completely unproven and unused method for executing someone\u201d.<\/p>\n
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