Supreme Court sides with Alabama inmate in battle over execution method

The Supreme Court sided Monday with an Alabama death row inmate who is challenging the state’s decision to execute him via lethal injection, with the highest court in the land allowing his lawsuit to stand.

Kenneth Smith, convicted for his role in a 1988 murder-for-hire plan, sued Alabama, claiming that the plan to kill him via lethal injection would violate his protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

On the day of his scheduled execution in November of last year, a lower court sided with Smith and put a stay on his execution — only for the Supreme Court to vacate it, allowing the execution attempt to go forward.

Officials couldn’t properly set the IV line before the expiration of Smith’s death warrant, however, and had to call off the execution.

On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to review the lower court’s ruling, which affirmed Smith’s right to die by lethal gas rather than injection. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.

Alabama noted that while the state’s legislature has approved the use of nitrogen gas for executions, it has not finalized all protocols for its application.

Smith and an accomplice were convicted of the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, with the two being hired by Sennett’s husband for the killing.

The decision comes after the state paused its executions last year, following a number of reports of botched executions by lethal injection. Republicans in the state called earlier this year for executions to resume, following the completion of a review of the state’s policies and practices.