Alabama executed convicted murderer Kenneth Smith by asphyxiating him with nitrogen gas on Thursday, the first use of a new method of capital punishment that the state is advancing as a simpler alternative to lethal injections. Smith, convicted of a 1988 murder-for-hire, was a rare prisoner who had already survived one execution attempt. In November 2022, Alabama officials aborted his execution by lethal injection after struggling for hours to insert an intravenous line's needle in his body. |