Unelected foreign bureaucrats at the United Nations (UN) are moving to block America’s first nitrogen gas execution from being carried out in Alabama.
The execution of murderer Kenneth Eugene Smith is scheduled for January 25.
Smith will be the first person in the United States to be executed using nitrogen hypoxia.
However, experts at the UN’s Human Rights Council argue there has been no evidence to suggest that nitrogen gas would not “result in a painful and humiliating death.”
The UN experts offered no evidence that nitrogen hypoxia would result in suffering.
Nevertheless, they argue that such executions may violate the UN Convention against Torture and other international agreements to which the U.S. is a party.
The push is being led by UN experts Morris Tidball-Binz, Alice Jill Edwards, Tlaeng Mofokeng, and Margaret Satterthwaite.
In a statement demanding a halt to the execution, the bureaucrats went on to express their disappointment in the U.S. for continuing the practice of capital punishment.
Alabama’s safety protocols for nitrogen executions acknowledge potential danger to those in the room administering the gas.
As a result, spiritual advisers are not allowed in the room at the time unless they sign a waiver beforehand.
Rev. Jeffrey Hood, a spiritual adviser to death row inmates, filed a lawsuit arguing that requiring such a waiver violates a Supreme Court ruling.
The SCOTUS ruling protects the right of an inmate to have a spiritual adviser present during his execution, according to CBS News.
Smith was convicted of the 1988 murder-for-hire of Elizabeth Sennett in Jefferson County, Alabama.
He was convicted 11-1 by a jury.
The jury recommended a sentence of life without parole.
The sentencing judge overruled that, however.
Instead, the judge sentenced him to death.
Alabama’s first attempt to execute Smith was on November 17, 2022, via lethal injection.
However, administrators in the room failed to find a suitable vein for the fatal drug despite four hours of trying.
While he narrowly escaped death, Smith’s execution was promptly rescheduled for this month using nitrogen hypoxia.
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