An Alabama death row inmate’s execution has been postponed due to controversy surrounding the execution method of using nitrogen hypoxia.

Nitrogen hypoxia is a new alternate execution method that was approved in 2018, where the inmate is forced to breathe pure nitrogen gas. Nitrogen makes up 78 percent of the air humans breathe, but Joel Zivot, an associate professor of anesthesiology at Emory University says that a person can breathe pure nitrogen and not immediately realize there is a problem. However, their cells and organs will slowly be starved of oxygen causing them to deteriorate rapidly; leading to the person passing out in minutes and then dying shortly after once the heart stops beating. 

This method of execution was proposed due to controversy surrounding the use of lethal injection as a form of capital punishment after several cases of botched executions and long, painful deaths.

However, Zivot said, “[nitrogen hypoxia] is dressed up as a medically sound practice, when it is anything but.” He stated that with lethal injection there is at least the attempt for the benefit of 'intoxication’ whereas with nitrogen hypoxia Zivot said, “the state has abandoned the pretext of intoxication and replaced it with pure suffocation.”

Nitrogen hypoxia has not been used as a way to execute a death row prisoner, yet. The next possible case of its use is in the case of death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith. Smith was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection in 1996 for helping to kill Elizabeth Sennett in March of 1988. Smith's execution was scheduled for November 17, 2022 however it amounted to Smith spending 4 hours strapped to a gurney while his execution team repeatedly failed their attempts to set the IV line intended to kill him. After this failed attempt, Smith denied a second attempt at lethal injection leaving Alabama to have to find new means of execution with their number one option being nitrogen hypoxia.

Smith's attorneys are now aggressively fighting against the use of nitrogen hypoxia on Smith, primarily due to it being an untested method. A law professor at Fordham University, Deborah Denno states that it is ‘appalling’ that the state would offer so little detail in its protocol. Deno said, “For a method that's never been used, it's incredibly vague.” Denno and the attorneys argue that something as serious as someone’s execution should have extensive research and a solid protocol especially if the form of execution has been proposed as a more humane method than its predecessors