Kenneth Smith’s execution condemned with 43 more death row inmates slated to die by nitrogen: Updates

Elizabeth Sennett’s sons spoke out following the execution of their mother’s killer, Kenneth Smith.

“All three of the people involved in this case years ago, we have forgiven them,” Mike Sennett said in a news conference on Friday.

“Not today, but we have in the past. Some people may not believe that, you know, how do you forgive somebody…I forgive them, I forgive them for what they’ve done.”

Mr Sennett said Smith’s punishment was deserving and long overdue.

“You know, the Bible says that evil deeds have consequences,” he said. “Kenneth Smith made some bad decisions 35 years ago, and his debt was paid tonight.”

However, he added that this was not a day of joy, noting that nothing would bring their mother back.

“Nothing happened here today that’s going to bring mom back, nothing,” Mr Sennett said. “It’s kind of a bittersweet day. We’re not going to be jumping around, hooting and hollering and all that. That’s not us.”

The execution of Kennth Smith using nitrogen hypoxia was “textbook” and will be used again, Alabama’s attorney general Steve Marshall said in a news conference on Friday.

It was the first time nitrogen hypoxia was used for an execution.

“What occurred last night was textbook,” AG Marshall said. “As of last night, nitrogen hypoxia as a means of execution is no longer an untested method. It is a proven one.”

Kenneth Smith was visited in prison by his wife and sons, who also witnessed his execution by nitrogen on Thursday.

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His last meal was steak, eggs and hash browns.

Moments before the execution, he said: “Tonight, Alabama causes humanity to take a step backwards… Thank you for supporting me. Love you all”.

He then turned to his family and signed the words “I love you”.

Michelle Del Rey reports:

Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett was murdered on 18 March 1988 by Kenneth Smith in a brutal attack inside her home in Colbert County, Alabama.

She was beaten by a fireplace implement and stabbed 10 times in the chest and neck, her death staged to look like a home invasion and burglary.

Sennett was the wife of Church of Christ pastor Charles Sennett, who allegedly paid Smith and another man $1,000 to kill her. The other man, John Forrest Parker, was executed in 2010.

The pastor was allegedly deeply in debt and wanted to collect on insurance from her death, according to court documents. He killed himself when the investigation focused on him as a suspect.

Smith was convicted in the murder-for-hire plot and in 1989, he was sentenced to death for capital murder, but it was overturned on appeal in 1992.

A jury then sentenced him to life without parole by a vote of 11 to one.

Smith ultimately wasn’t spared a death sentence, as a judge overruled the jury and handed him the death penalty for a second time in 1996.

Kenneth Eugene Smith became the first person in the world to be put to death using nitrogen gas after his execution was carried out on Thursday at an Alabama prison.

But how did Smith end up on death row in the first place? Read more:

Authorities in Alabama have come up with a grim and as-yet untested alternative to lethal injection and electric chair – being gassed to death with pure nitrogen, a reputedly ‘painless’ procedure that slowly starves the criminal of oxygen until they die. But would you use it to put down a sickly pet, asks Sean O’Grady.

Read Sean’s full piece here:

The last time Alabama attempted to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith, he was one of four death row inmates who were set to be killed across four states in just over 48 hours.

As Josh Marcus wrote for The Independent’s End the Death Penalty campaign at the time, the separate cases showed how capital punishment states struggle with the basics of swift, humane executions.

Then, Alabama botched Smith’s execution when it failed to a suitable vein in which to deliver the lethal drugs.

His execution by nitrogen hypoxia is due to be carried out by officials in the same chamber at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, on Thursday.

Read Josh’s full story from November 2022 below.

As witnesses including five news reporters watched through a window, Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was convicted and sentenced to die in the 1988 murder-for hire slaying of Elizabeth Sennett, convulsed on a gurney as Alabama carried out the nation’s first execution using nitrogen gas.

Critics who had worried the new execution method would be cruel and experimental said Smith’s final moments Thursday night proved they were right. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, however, characterized it on Friday as a “textbook” execution.

The 58-year-old was strapped to a gurney and fitted with a mask and a breathing tube that controlled the gas, slowly depriving him of oxygen, at William C Holman prison in Atmore, Alabama last night.