ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — As witnesses including five news reporters watched through a window, Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was convicted and sentenced to die in the 1988 murder-for hire slaying of Elizabeth Sennett, convulsed on a gurney as Alabama carried out the nation’s first execution using nitrogen gas.
The most bizarre thing about the entire debate is that most proponents of the death penalty explicitly want it to be a painful experience.
Everything pushed to make they process more effective and humane meets resistance.
They’re self-convinced, against nearly all studies and evidence and expert consensus, that capital punishment is an effective deterrent.