Alabama became the first state to execute a death row inmate, who was accused of killing a woman in a 1988 murder-for-hire plot, using nitrogen gas on Thursday after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene.
Officials said Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, was pronounced dead at 8:25 p.m. ET at an Alabama prison after he breathed pure nitrogen gas through a face mask, causing oxygen deprivation. It marked the first time a new execution method has been used in the United States since the introduction of lethal injection, now the most commonly used method, in 1982.
