If Eyewitnesses Are Correct the Recent Nitrogen Execution Was Botched

I am, oddly enough, qualified to make this statement

Glen Hendrix
4 min readJan 28, 2024
San Quentin execution by injection room — courtesy Wikimedia Commons Images

On January 26, 2024, convicted murderer Kenneth Eugene Smith was put to death in Atmore, Alabama. No electric chair, lethal injection or gun was used. Nitrogen gas deprived the man of oxygen until he was dead. The reason given for this novel method is the inability to readily obtain the necessary drugs for a lethal injection.

Eyewitnesses say that for two minutes of the twenty-two minute procedure, the man displayed seizure-like spasms of the body severe enough to shake the gurney to which he was strapped.

Some caveats here. I am not a physician or a scientist. I’m so dumb I went to university for five years and only have a two year degree to show for it. That’s what happens when you switch from science to medical technology to art to engineering.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons I lasted only two hours as a roofer but ended up designing good looking, ergonomic industrial equipment that worked to spec. I digress.

At some point between food stamps and my design career, I convinced a non-roofer employer that I knew enough to work for them.

Have you ever seen those big trailers that look like a giant medical capsule…

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