SCOTUS - No lethal injection without inmate’s permission

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The Supreme Court on Monday rejected Alabama's bid to execute a death row inmate by lethal injection, leaving in place a lower court ruling that his preference for lethal gas is a viable alternative method.

Kenneth Smith, sentenced to death for murdering Elizabeth Sennett in 1988, objected to being executed by lethal injection because of the pain it would cause. He alleged it would violate his right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.

Kenneth Eugene Smith was convicted in a 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of a preacher’s wife. Alabama Department of Corrections via AP
Smith suggested lethal gas be used instead.

The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for Smith in November, saying that because the state has approved use of lethal gas, Smith could seek an alternative method of execution.

The appeals court ruling was issued the same day the state unsuccessfully sought to execute Smith by lethal injection. Officials called off the execution after struggling to insert an intravenous line before the death warrant expired at midnight. The Supreme Court, which regularly allows executions to take place, had earlier allowed the execution to proceed.

Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said they would have ruled in favor of the state.

"When the question is whether the Eighth Amendment requires a state to replace its chosen method with an alternative method in executing the plaintiff, it is simply irrelevant, without more, that the state's statutes authorize the use of the alternative method that are to take place sometime in the indefinite future," Thomas wrote.

Alabama officials say that although lethal gas was approved as a method of execution in 2018, an execution protocol has not been finalized. It gave prisoners 30 days to choose an alternative method, an option Smith did not choose at the time, the state says.

Smith's lawyers say that the state is already planning to execute other death row inmates using lethal gas.