May 15 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that an Alabama death row inmate should be allowed to die by nitrogen hypoxia, the state's new method of execution, after the state failed to execute him last November with a lethal injection of drugs.
Kenneth Smith was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1988 murder-for-hire case of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, a pastor's wife who was fatally stabbed and beaten.
During his botched execution six months ago, Alabama Department of Corrections workers could not start an intravenous line for the lethal injection of drugs before midnight, expiring the warrant.
Smith's legal team said the state should use the unproven nitrogen hypoxia. Nitrogen hypoxia, or nitrogen suffocation, is a method of forcing someone to inhale pure nitrogen, or nitrogen in much higher concentrations than are present in the atmosphere.
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