Death row execution: Alabama's first suffocation
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 19 January 2024
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After trying - and failing - to kill him via lethal injection, Alabama is planning to execute death row inmate Kenneth Smith next week using an untested method - nitrogen suffocation. But why are they resorting to this? And could he get a last minute reprieve?
Today's episode contains descriptions of death and execution, right from the start - so do consider if you want to listen.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You match with Maya on Tinder, you agree you don't fancy each other, but she makes you laugh till it hurts. |
| 0:05.3 | She dragged you to a mate house on the outskirts of the city, and you actually have a great time. |
| 0:10.0 | You connect with some new people, like Isaac, and decide to go to the gallery in the city centre, |
| 0:15.8 | where you bond over your shared appreciation of silence. |
| 0:19.2 | And bit by bit, the world starts to feel so full of possibilities and you think what if I hadn't |
| 0:25.7 | met Maya on tinder it starts with a swipe download the app now you know that guy I've |
| 0:31.1 | been seeing yeah turns out my sister've been seeing? Yeah. |
| 0:33.0 | Turns out my sister's been seeing him too. |
| 0:35.0 | Oh, really? |
| 0:36.0 | And I heard he's been seeing Kelly at number 56. |
| 0:39.0 | And Dave? |
| 0:41.0 | Your brother? |
| 0:42.0 | Yep. |
| 0:43.0 | Speck savers opticians and audiologists own their stores, |
| 0:47.0 | so your care is their business, |
| 0:49.5 | which can make them |
| 0:53.0 | to tell you. |
| 0:55.0 | I've got half an hour with him this afternoon. |
| 0:57.0 | Speck savers, your care is our business. There are lots of ways to suffocate, drowning, hanging, choking, strangulation, and now, in America, they're experimenting with a whole new method, nitrogen gas. |
| 1:29.4 | Using nitrogen to cause suffocation is considered such a cruel way to die that vets in America |
| 1:37.0 | are advised not to use it to put down pets. But now the American state of Alabama is going to try it on a human. |
| 1:47.0 | Alabama is adopting a method of execution that's never been used in history. |
... |
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