Death-penalty states are taking increasingly aggressive steps to keep their execution chambers operating, despite growing public anxiety that the practice of capital punishment is unfair, The Guardian reports. Last year, the number of states carrying out executions declined to a 20-year low. Just five states, Alabama, Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas, executed prisoners. Though capital punishment is receding into a few largely southern states, those that still practice it are growing ever more aggressive. Some are turning to alternative execution methods to lethal injection, while others are shrouding the process in secrecy. In 20 days, barring a last-minute reprieve, Kenneth Smith of Alabama will become the first person to be executed in the U.S. using the untried and untested method known as nitrogen hypoxia. After a spate of botched executions, the department of corrections has turned to an entirely experimental procedure that experts warn could subject Smith to cruel and unusual punishment.
Alabama’s flirtation with nitrogen as an execution method is just the most glaring manifestation of a trend among death-penalty states. Several are toying with alternative methods as a means of buying themselves flexibility. This year Idaho became the fifth state to authorize the firing squad, while Tennessee tried and failed to pass legislation that would also have adopted the technique. South Carolina responded to difficulties obtaining lethal drugs by shifting in 2021 to the electric chair and the firing squad as default. With death penalty states adopting alternative killing methods, at least on paper, the U.S. now has six different protocols on states’ books: lethal injection, electric chair, lethal gas including cyanide, firing squad, hanging and now Alabama’s nitrogen hypoxia. Amid the plethora of execution methods, public concern is rising about the fairness of the death penalty. Death penalty states are making a renewed push to hide their practices in the hope of deflecting adverse public scrutiny.
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