On January 25, 2024, Alabama made history—for all the wrong reasons. Kenneth Eugene Smith became the first person executed using nitrogen hypoxia, a method touted as “humane” but witnessed as harrowing. His death marked the beginning of a new, controversial chapter in American capital punishment.
Smith gasped over 225 times. His body convulsed. His spiritual adviser, Rev. Jeff Hood, described it as “the worst one yet.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor later wrote, “The Eighth Amendment guarantees that the death penalty be carried out in a humane manner. Smith’s execution did not meet that standard.”
This is not just about one man. It’s about the breath of mercy being choked out by procedural cruelty.
What Is Nitrogen Hypoxia?
Nitrogen hypoxia is a relatively new method of execution where pure nitrogen is administered through a mask, displacing oxygen and causing death by asphyxiation. It’s been promoted as a “clean” alternative to lethal injection, especially as pharmaceutical companies refuse to supply execution drugs.
But the American Veterinary Medical Association deems nitrogen euthanasia for unanesthetized mammals “unacceptable.” If it’s too cruel for animals, how can it be righteous for humans?
A Breathless October
On October 23, 2025, Alabama executed Anthony Boyd using nitrogen hypoxia. The state claimed it was “humane.” Witnesses described nearly 20 minutes of gasping—over 225 audible attempts to breathe. His final words: “There is no justice in this state.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor condemned the method as “torturous suffocation,” warning that it violated the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
This wasn’t just a legal procedure. It was a spectacle of suffering.
A Dissent that Breathes
In her dissent opposing Boyd’s execution, Justice Sonia Sotomayor offered a searing meditation on state-sanctioned suffocation. She urged readers to:
“Take out your phone, go to the clock app, and find the stopwatch… Now imagine for that entire time, you are suffocating.”
She described Boyd’s final moments in haunting detail—gasping, convulsing, and thrashing for nearly four minutes before losing consciousness, with death declared almost 20 minutes later. Boyd had requested a firing squad instead, calling it “the barest form of mercy.”
Sotomayor’s dissent was more than legal critique. It was a moral indictment. She warned that the Court’s refusal to intervene marked a dangerous erosion of constitutional protections:
“The Eighth Amendment guarantees that the death penalty be carried out in a humane manner. Boyd’s execution did not meet that standard.”
Her words echo the breathlessness of the condemned—and the silence of the system that permitted it.
Source: Davis Vanguard
From Texas to Alabama: A Shift in Carceral Identity
In my recent series comparing Texas and Alabama’s carceral landscapes, I traced patterns of sentencing, prison conditions, and other extremes in their penal systems. Texas, with its high execution count and procedural rigidity, often masks cruelty behind efficiency. Alabama, by contrast, now seems to be rebranding cruelty as innovation.
The adoption of nitrogen hypoxia—first with Kenneth Smith, then Anthony Boyd, and now Jessie Hoffman Jr. in Louisiana—signals a new chapter in Alabama’s carceral legacy. One marked not by reform, but by ritualized suffocation cloaked in legal precision.
This isn’t just a procedural pivot. It’s a moral reckoning.
Justice or Spectacle?
States like Ohio are now considering nitrogen hypoxia as an alternative to lethal injection. House Bill 36 proposes it as a “more humane” method. But critics argue it violates constitutional mandates for executions to be “quick and painless.”
Some states list it as a backup method. Alabama and Louisiana have used it. Oklahoma has approved it. The trend is growing, even as the moral cost deepens.
- The execution protocols remain heavily redacted, shielding the process from public accountability.
- Medical experts warn the method is experimental and prone to panic-induced airway constriction.
- The UN and human rights groups have condemned it as potentially amounting to torture.
This isn’t about whether the death penalty is ever biblically permissible. Scripture contains executions, yes, but it also commands justice to be righteous, not performative. What’s at stake here is not the existence of capital punishment, but the manner in which it is carried out.
When a man gasps for air for 20 minutes under a mask of nitrogen, we are no longer in the realm of justice. We are in the realm of spectacle.
Closing Reflection
Justice without breath is not justice at all. It is performance. It is punishment without repentance. And I do not write this to condemn the existence of justice. I write to defend its breath. Because when justice forgets mercy, it forgets its purpose.
On (In)justice 