The US could see its first execution with nitrogen gas Thursday after the Supreme Court and 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals both declined a request for a stay Wednesday. The Supreme Court didn't comment, while the Court of Appeals said Kenneth Smith, convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of a pastor's wife, didn't have sufficient support for his claims that the untested "nitrogen hypoxia" method would constitute cruel and unusual punishment, per the AP. Unless the Supreme Court overturns that verdict, 58-year-old Smith is likely to be executed at 6pm in Alabama, one of only three states to approve the execution method dreamed up by a screenwriter of horror films.
- Stuart Creque, a screenwriter and technology marketing executive, was a college dropout with zero training in medicine or toxicology when he first proposed execution by nitrogen gas in a 1995 National Review article titled "Killing With Kindness," per the New Yorker in 2015. He claimed the method "put people to sleep" without pain, physical trauma, or "hazardous chemicals."