Speaker 1: Pushkin previously on Revisionist History.
Speaker 2: Had my wife just been murdered in my home, I
Speaker 2: could tell you nothing. My mind's gone. But he knew
Speaker 2: everything in detail. That's a red flag.
Speaker 3: I can't remember how soon they figured out that, you know,
Speaker 3: the preacher had sent us the job and all that,
Speaker 3: but it was, you know, it was pretty obvious, pretty quick.
Speaker 4: I just don't think some of these people that were
Speaker 4: on the jury, they didn't want that to be on
Speaker 4: their conscious the rest of their life. Putting somebody into
Speaker 4: the death penalty.
Speaker 5: Thirty five years, that's how long Elizabethsonnett's family waited for
Speaker 5: justice to occur.
Speaker 2: Thirty five long years.
Speaker 6: He was just having severe nightmares of being executed over
Speaker 6: and over. He sort of came out of a depression
Speaker 6: and then the second execution came up.
Speaker 2: So at some point during your conversations with him, he
Speaker 2: gets his second warrant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when is that?
Speaker 6: So he got a second warrant in November a year
Speaker 6: later for January execution. So you know, they take you
Speaker 6: as soon as they give you the warrant. By the way,
Speaker 6: this is another particularly cruel thing. This is the man
Speaker 6: who's been thirty four years. He has a cell. He's
Speaker 6: you know, they call it their house, their cell. So
Speaker 6: his house was nice, you know, he had his stuff
Speaker 6: in there. And once they take you to the warden
Speaker 6: and tell you they don't take you back to your cell,
Speaker 6: that's it. You get put in the death chamber cell,
Speaker 6: which is this totally isolated cell.
Speaker 1: Very hard.
Speaker 2: Kate Portererfield, the psychologist hired by Kenny Smith's legal team,
Speaker 2: once he was given the second warrant and taken to
Speaker 2: the death chamber, did you lose contact with him?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 1: No, we were able to talk.
Speaker 6: We talked up until about I think we talked up
Speaker 6: until about December, and then he got very you know,
Speaker 6: he turned his attention to facing what was probably going
Speaker 6: to happen. His lawyers were working very hard to still
Speaker 6: stop it. I testified in the hearing about what I
Speaker 6: believed was going to happen to him with his post
Speaker 6: traumatic stress if he had to go through this again.
Speaker 6: And I testified, which I believed to be true, that
Speaker 6: this man was going to go into a state of
Speaker 6: such severe symptomatic PTSD as to be really just devastated,
Speaker 6: you know, to be taken into that same thing again
Speaker 6: was going to just be you know, catastrophic to his psyche. Yeah, well,
Speaker 6: and those words cruel and unusuals like the legal term.
Speaker 6: And so what I was saying is this man's going
Speaker 6: to be absolutely devastated within his psyche and disorganized and
Speaker 6: completely symptomatic because he's got a severe condition that you
Speaker 6: guys did to him, by the way, that was brought
Speaker 6: about by what was done.
Speaker 1: So this was not a guy who had PTSD before this.
Speaker 2: Do you remember the first contact you had with him
Speaker 2: after he got.
Speaker 1: His warrant, I mean, I remember some of it. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was very focused on fighting.
Speaker 6: You know, he was very focused on fighting it, and
Speaker 6: he was very worried about his family.
Speaker 1: He was super worried about his mom.
Speaker 6: And his grandson and his wife. So he was very
Speaker 6: focused on them. And he also said, you know, I've
Speaker 6: had the greatest lawyers. We're going to keep fighting this.
Speaker 6: I mean, look, he was anxious, he was really starting
Speaker 6: to fall apart, but he was also trying to be
Speaker 6: focused on hope.
Speaker 2: My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to the Alabama Murders.
Speaker 2: This is the final episode in our series. We started
Speaker 2: with the murder of Elizabeth Senate on Coon Dog Cemetery Road.
Speaker 2: And now we're going to end with what happened in
Speaker 2: Kenny Smith's last days, the bizarre and grotesque final act
Speaker 2: to the Senate cascade, with the State of Alabama endeavored
Speaker 2: to figure out and justify another way of executing Kenny Smith.
Speaker 2: This is episode seven, the Second Warrant. Just over a
Speaker 2: month before Kenny Smith's second execution date, his legal team
Speaker 2: made one last big push to save his life. A
Speaker 2: lawsuit heard in US History Court in Montgomery, Alabama, Kenneth
Speaker 2: Eugene Smith v. John Q. Ham Ham. The defendant is
Speaker 2: the commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections. Bulldog of
Speaker 2: a guy, maybe six feet bald, white mustache and go tee,
Speaker 2: dark suit, white shirt, red tie. If you're curious about him,
Speaker 2: you can find him on YouTube, where he's a regular.
Speaker 2: He's the person in Alabama state government whose job it
Speaker 2: is to stand up at press conferences and announce that
Speaker 2: one of his prisons has just executed another person about.
Speaker 4: One of the Alabama spring Born the night State of
Speaker 4: Alabama carried out excuse of James Barber by lethal injection
Speaker 4: at Williams a Hold Prison.
Speaker 2: He answers questions about how things went emny IVS.
Speaker 1: Did you need the heavy any too?
Speaker 4: We had too, So there were three stays to six minutes.
Speaker 2: And let's the world know they've done their job well.
Speaker 4: So we carried out successful law in execution of the
Speaker 4: man's break.
Speaker 5: Ut and.
Speaker 2: John Q. Ham this is who Kenny Smith's legal team
Speaker 2: is up against. The basis of their appeal was a
Speaker 2: new method that Alabama intended to use on Kenny Smith.
Speaker 2: Having lost confidence in the ability of its execution team
Speaker 2: to find one of Kenny Smith's vans, the state decided
Speaker 2: instead to strap him to a gurney, put a mask
Speaker 2: over his face, and pump him full of nitrogen gas,
Speaker 2: a method that had never been used in a judicial
Speaker 2: execution before in the United States, or for that matter, anywhere.
Speaker 2: They were attempting to make history, and in response, Kenny
Speaker 2: Smith's lawyers argued that the use of an untested method
Speaker 2: like nitrogen asphyxiation would violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition against
Speaker 2: cruel and unusual punishment. Wanted a preliminary injunction. Tell me
Speaker 2: a little bit about nitrogen gas.
Speaker 8: It's not in its pure form. It's not used you
Speaker 8: know in medical situations.
Speaker 2: This is joel' zivid, the Atlanta and the caesiologist who
Speaker 2: we've heard from many times in this series.
Speaker 8: You know, in the air we breathe, it airs actually
Speaker 8: is a mixture of about seventy nine percent or eighty
Speaker 8: percent nitrogen and twenty twenty nine percent oxygen. Why don't
Speaker 8: we breathe pure oxygen? If the atmosphere of the Earth
Speaker 8: was pure oxygen, it would be on fire and there
Speaker 8: would be no life. So to make it kind of
Speaker 8: work in the body, we have to water it down,
Speaker 8: so to speak, with nitrogen gas.
Speaker 2: We breathe in oxygen, which keeps us alive, mixed in
Speaker 2: with enough nitrogen to make it safe. Nitrogen is inert.
Speaker 2: It just passes in and out of the body.
Speaker 8: Like it doesn't kind of hurt to inhale it. But
Speaker 8: what it does do is that it doesn't you know,
Speaker 8: it doesn't light the fire of life. It doesn't support
Speaker 8: the cellular combustion that is required with oxygen. So it's
Speaker 8: like putting the candle, you know, under the glass, and
Speaker 8: the candle eventually uses up all the oxygen and nothing remains.
Speaker 8: So the theory was that because nitrogen gas was not noxious,
Speaker 8: it would be it could be given to someone as
Speaker 8: a kind of, you know, method of gas execution that
Speaker 8: would not be so troubling to them because they would
Speaker 8: breathe it and not know it, and that they would
Speaker 8: then lose consciousness and die.
Speaker 2: All you needed was some pure industrial grade nitrogen gas
Speaker 2: and a type fitting mask. That was the theory and
Speaker 2: the great appeal of nitrogen to state like Alabama, where
Speaker 2: the execution teams were not always up to the challenge
Speaker 2: of executing people the conventional way. But in practice there
Speaker 2: are complications, like if some oxygen seeps into your mask
Speaker 2: while you're being fed nitrogen, then you could end up
Speaker 2: in a vegetative state, alive but brain dead. There's also
Speaker 2: the possibility, since pure nitrogen makes people nauseous, that the
Speaker 2: prisoner being executed could throw up in their mask and
Speaker 2: choke to death, which achieves the same end but inducing
Speaker 2: someone to asphyxiate on their own vomit is not a
Speaker 2: Supreme Court approved method of execution as yet.
Speaker 8: So in lethal injection, you know, once the vein is
Speaker 8: canulated and the drugs are flowing, it's hard to stop. Okay,
Speaker 8: you can't kind of block your own vein or do something.
Speaker 8: But in gas execution, you have to participate in your
Speaker 8: own demand by breathing. Okay, So the first thing that
Speaker 8: you're going to do is as you hold your breath, okay,
Speaker 8: because you don't want to breathe. So now you're holding
Speaker 8: your breath. You're holding your breath, and as you hold
Speaker 8: your breath, your own carbon dioxide gas, which is something
Speaker 8: that we normally exhale and is sort of finely regulated,
Speaker 8: starts to rise. And it's the rising of carbon dioxide
Speaker 8: that is very uncomfortable when you hold your breath. It
Speaker 8: makes you want to take a breath, So that starts
Speaker 8: to at some point you can't stand it, okay, and
Speaker 8: you've got to take a breath, so you breathe in.
Speaker 8: At that point, you breathe in. This nitrogen gas that
Speaker 8: you know, has a very different kind of impact on
Speaker 8: what's happened to you because by virtue of holding your breath,
Speaker 8: it dilates the blood vessels in the brain. Okay, So
Speaker 8: now you've got this flush of nitrogen gas that's traveling,
Speaker 8: you know, at volume into your brain. That may be
Speaker 8: why you have a seizure, and it seems to create
Speaker 8: a cascade of other kinds of physiologic changes. None of
Speaker 8: which this instantaneous unconsciousness followed by death.
Speaker 2: The effectiveness of nitrogen gas as an euthanizing agent has
Speaker 2: actually been extensively studied in animals. A group of researchers
Speaker 2: in Zurich, for example, recently took sixty rats, implanted them
Speaker 2: with biomedical sensors, divided them into groups, each with a
Speaker 2: different lethal method carbon dioxide, a powerful anesthetic called isofluorane,
Speaker 2: carbon monoxide, and nitrogen. They euthanized all the animals, videotaped
Speaker 2: their final moments, necropsied the bodies, and collected cardiovascular, respiratory, neural, biochemical, histological,
Speaker 2: and behavioral data. Conclusion, carbon monoxide and nitrogen resulted in
Speaker 2: longer times to loss of consciousness, induced seizures before loss
Speaker 2: of consciousness, increased stress levels, and caused higher lung damage. Therefore,
Speaker 2: carbon monoxide and nitrogen are not humane alternatives and should
Speaker 2: not be used for euthanasia. They weren't talking about the
Speaker 2: applicability of their findings to human beings. They were simply
Speaker 2: addressing their colleagues who used lab animals for research purposes.
Speaker 2: They were telling them even the smallest and most despised
Speaker 2: of animals deserves some degree of consideration. Please don't use nitrogen.
Speaker 2: A rat deserves a better way to die. So this
Speaker 2: was the point of the final lawsuit. Kenny Smith's lawyers
Speaker 2: wanted to know had John Hamm and his colleagues thought
Speaker 2: about this new method of killing people with anything like
Speaker 2: the rigor of the lab racy. December twentieth, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: it's a month before Kenny Smith's second execution date. John Q.
Speaker 2: Ham took the stand in the morning. He began by
Speaker 2: laying out Alabama's proposed protocol they would be using, he said,
Speaker 2: the same execution chamber as a lethal injection attempt, the
Speaker 2: same gurney, the execution team would have the same captain.
Speaker 2: Ten of the twelve members of the execution team would
Speaker 2: be the same. Each step of the protocol would be
Speaker 2: the same. The only difference would be no IV this time,
Speaker 2: just a mask hooked up to a canister of pure nitrogen.
Speaker 2: The cross examination was handled by one of any Smith's lawyers,
Speaker 2: Andrew Burns Johnson out of Birmingham. Can you tell the
Speaker 2: court what deliberation you had relating to what to do
Speaker 2: in the circumstance of vomiting in the mask? When nitrogen
Speaker 2: is being applied. Answer, we just had conversations about, like
Speaker 2: I said, sitting around hypotheticals. So we sat around and
Speaker 2: we came up with those ideas or excuse me, the
Speaker 2: side effects. So what we would do in that situation?
Speaker 2: Question did you consider that vomiting in a mask could
Speaker 2: cause asphyxiation? Answer? Yes, sir. Question did you consult with
Speaker 2: any medical personnel about how to lessen that risk? Answer? No, sir.
Speaker 2: Did you talk to any medical personnel about how to
Speaker 2: alleviate that risk? No, sir. Did you talk to any
Speaker 2: medical personnel about what to do in that situation as
Speaker 2: it's happening to prevent asphyxiation? I did not. I can
Speaker 2: only imagine what was going through the mind of Kenny
Speaker 2: Smith's lawyer in that moment. Is it bafflement, disbelief? I mean,
Speaker 2: for goodness sake, a research team in Zurich went to
Speaker 2: enormous effort to figure out whether nitrogen was worthy of
Speaker 2: lab rats. Could the Alabama State Department of Corrections, an
Speaker 2: organization with a budget of over seven hundred million dollars,
Speaker 2: really just be winging it? Wait, we're not finished. Question, Okay,
Speaker 2: you certainly had medical personnel available to you to ask
Speaker 2: that question? Answer, I could have sought out medical advice. Yes.
Speaker 2: Question okay, did the state have medical personnel involved in
Speaker 2: this process of developing this protocol that you signed? Answer?
Speaker 2: The Department of Corrections did not have medical personnel involved.
Speaker 2: Question were you ever involved in meetings with medical personnel
Speaker 2: with the issue ofvomiting in the mask was discussed at all? Answer? No, sir.
Speaker 2: Question have you had an opportunity to review the declarations
Speaker 2: of the experts in this case who talk about the
Speaker 2: effects of vomiting in the mask? Answer? I have not.
Speaker 2: This goes on and on. By the way, other witnesses
Speaker 2: from the state of Alabama get called. Has anyone thought
Speaker 2: about what would happen if outside air came into the mask?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 2: Where did you get that mask? By the way, Well,
Speaker 2: they don't really make masks for execution purposes, do they?
Speaker 2: So we're using an industrial mask, the kind that a
Speaker 2: construction worker might use. We did some internet research. Literally,
Speaker 2: the person who the state asked to figure out the
Speaker 2: mask question, who they brought to the hearing to support
Speaker 2: their case, admitted that he never used these kinds of masks,
Speaker 2: had no expertise in the characteristics of these masks, and
Speaker 2: knew what he knew because he'd spend some time online.
Speaker 2: Kenny Smith's lawyer then brings up the testimony of a
Speaker 2: previous witness who'd stress the importance of the mask fitting
Speaker 2: perfectly so no outside air would leak in, and asks
Speaker 2: John q Ham about it. Question, So, in order to
Speaker 2: be properly placed, one would have to ensure that there's
Speaker 2: no outside air coming in? Answer? That was his opinion.
Speaker 2: Question okay, assuming his opinion is correct, what's done in
Speaker 2: the execution chamber to make sure that no outside air
Speaker 2: gets under the mask? Answer? Well, that's hypothetical on his
Speaker 2: opinion being correct. Question even so, what is done to
Speaker 2: make sure no outside air comes in? Answer? I don't
Speaker 2: know specifically what the team captain does to make sure
Speaker 2: the air does not get in, but I'm sure they
Speaker 2: do practice quite regular Question. Do you agree with me?
Speaker 2: There's nothing in the protocol that would let us know
Speaker 2: what's going to have happened to make sure there's a
Speaker 2: proper fit. Answer that is correct. Later in the day,
Speaker 2: Kate Porterfield was called to the stand. She had spent
Speaker 2: more than a year assessing Kenny Smith. She had submitted
Speaker 2: her report to the court. She probably knew more than
Speaker 2: anyone at that moment what he was feeling and how
Speaker 2: he was doing, and how he might react to being
Speaker 2: re executed by the same crew on the same journey
Speaker 2: in the same execution chamber as the first go round.
Speaker 2: But do you know what she was asked at the
Speaker 2: beginning of her cross examination by the attorney for the
Speaker 2: Alabama Department of Corrections. Had she properly accounted for the
Speaker 2: possibility that Kenny might be malingering? What if all that
Speaker 2: PTSD stuff that he claimed was about being jabbed with
Speaker 2: needles for three and a half hours was just him
Speaker 2: faking it? A long technical discussion follows about how you
Speaker 2: can tell if someone's actually faking it, and from there
Speaker 2: the questioning moved to the vomit.
Speaker 6: Issue, and astonishingly, oh gosh, the focus of that hearing
Speaker 6: this is how what where the legal system sometimes is
Speaker 6: just you can't make it up?
Speaker 1: This stuff that they that.
Speaker 6: Becomes the issue because he had to have a mask
Speaker 6: over his face to get the gas for nitrogen hypoxia execution,
Speaker 6: and sorry, the details of this are gross, his lawyers argued,
Speaker 6: he is because of his post traumatic stress, going to
Speaker 6: possibly throw up, and if he throws up in his mask,
Speaker 6: it's going to be you know, he could get asphixiated
Speaker 6: that way. Now of course you are listening and thinking
Speaker 6: this is so like talk about absurd, right.
Speaker 1: So I was asked to testify.
Speaker 6: About his post traumatic stress and his nausea, which was
Speaker 6: one of his symptoms. And you know, I was asked
Speaker 6: to testify would he throw up if they put a
Speaker 6: mask on his face and try to kill him, which
Speaker 6: you know, it's just incredible to be asked that in
Speaker 6: a court of law. And I had to say, you know,
Speaker 6: I'm not a medical doctor first of all, so I
Speaker 6: can't speak to the gastro intestinal system and what it does.
Speaker 6: I can tell you as a psychologist from this kind
Speaker 6: of severe post traumatic stress and the fact that mister
Speaker 6: Smith's had really severe nausea and so vomiting, there is
Speaker 6: a high likelihood that could happen, Yes, because he's going
Speaker 6: to go into a serious state of distress.
Speaker 1: But it kind of boiled down to whether or not
Speaker 1: he would.
Speaker 6: You know, vomit, as whether they could stop this, and they,
Speaker 6: you know, the judge said, the judge said, don't let
Speaker 6: him eat eight hours before.
Speaker 1: That's what they did move the last meal earlier.
Speaker 2: And with that Kenny's fate was said. In the months
Speaker 2: leading up to his execution date, Kenny Smith began to
Speaker 2: put his affairs in order. In his words, he loved
Speaker 2: up on everybody. He named his witnesses. He wanted his
Speaker 2: family there, his mom, his wife, his sons, his spiritual advisor,
Speaker 2: his lawyer, Robert Grass. So tell me about that evening.
Speaker 9: So I arrived. I was supposed to go to the
Speaker 9: prison at five, So I got there at five.
Speaker 2: Everyone on the list arrived at home in prison on
Speaker 2: the afternoon of January twenty fifth. The corrections department gathered
Speaker 2: them and put them in a van to drive to
Speaker 2: the execution chamber.
Speaker 9: At some point it started to rain and you could
Speaker 9: hear on the roof, you know, you could hear the
Speaker 9: rain falling on the roof.
Speaker 2: They emptied their pockets, no watches, no phones. At six
Speaker 2: point fifty two, one of the drivers of the van
Speaker 2: got a phone call. It was moving time. A police
Speaker 2: car with flashing lights led the way through a gate
Speaker 2: at the back of the prison. From there to a
Speaker 2: holding room. Another wait, maybe an hour. Lee Hedgebeth, the
Speaker 2: local reporter who did some interviews for US was there,
Speaker 2: so was Kenny Smith's mom, Linda.
Speaker 5: He'd survived that first attempt, Did you think there was
Speaker 5: any chance that he would survive the second time?
Speaker 1: You know, I really didn't. Good you, I don't know.
Speaker 5: Part of me thought we might all die because they
Speaker 5: didn't know what they were doing. It was the first
Speaker 5: time it had ever been done. Yeah, you know, he's
Speaker 5: got a mask that leaks, and.
Speaker 7: I don't know, somehow I just knew that that was
Speaker 7: that was going to be it. And when he well,
Speaker 7: he said when he seen him coming there, said well, Mom,
Speaker 7: they're coming to get me, and you know, we said
Speaker 7: our good pies, and you know, the laughing thing he
Speaker 7: said was I love you, Mom, I gotta go.
Speaker 5: So the last time he saw him was when I
Speaker 5: was there in my room and they come and get him.
Speaker 5: Do you remember is that what he said to you then? Too?
Speaker 5: What do you remember what she said to him?
Speaker 7: I told him I loved him too. He said, I know, Mom.
Speaker 7: And then I just can't get that picture out of
Speaker 7: my head when he's they're walking him back and he
Speaker 7: looked back and he was just smiling. Yeah, that haunts me.
Speaker 2: At some point, everyone was led to the witness room.
Speaker 9: A curtain was drawn by the windows. There were four
Speaker 9: seats in the front which we took. There was a
Speaker 9: box of tissues to my right near the window sill,
Speaker 9: or on a window sill, and then a little after
Speaker 9: that they opened the curtain. We could see Kenny strapped
Speaker 9: to a gurney, who was strapped across his chest. His
Speaker 9: arms were strapped to the side, and he was wearing
Speaker 9: a mask. The warden entered the room. He read the
Speaker 9: death warrant. He asked Kenny if he had if you
Speaker 9: want to make a statement, which he did, so they
Speaker 9: put the microphone. They unscrewed a valve to the mask.
Speaker 9: They put the microphone near him, and he made his statement.
Speaker 9: Warden then left the room.
Speaker 2: What did he say?
Speaker 9: He said something along the lines of that Alabama was
Speaker 9: taking a step backwards that evening, and he said, I
Speaker 9: love you all, I'm going with peace, and I forget
Speaker 9: exactly what it was, but it was something along those lines.
Speaker 9: The warden left the room and then they started the procedure,
Speaker 9: or at least that's what it seemed like. And that was,
Speaker 9: you know, pretty ugly to watch because Kenny, they had
Speaker 9: been saying all along that Kenny would be unconscious and
Speaker 9: you know seconds, you know, less than a minute, and
Speaker 9: this would be a painless thing. I'm not a medical person.
Speaker 9: I can't opine on the on what happened. The only
Speaker 9: one who can tell us if he experienced pain is
Speaker 9: not here to describe it. But what I observed anyhow,
Speaker 9: did not look like what Alabama had advertised, because there
Speaker 9: were violent seizure type movements. You know, it's kind of
Speaker 9: as best he could against the constraints. You could see
Speaker 9: his head come back and violently come forward and violently
Speaker 9: go back. You could see his fist clenched in his arms,
Speaker 9: straining against the restraints. And as I said, I didn't
Speaker 9: have my watch, and I wasn't cognizant if there was
Speaker 9: a clock in the room. But I can tell you
Speaker 9: that that went on, you know, that was minutes, not seconds,
Speaker 9: that that appeared to be going on. There's was what
Speaker 9: appeared to be gasping for air. After that, for again
Speaker 9: another period of you know, minutes, not nott seconds. At
Speaker 9: at some point you could see him kind of fall
Speaker 9: back into you know, into the gurney and and lay there.
Speaker 9: Then they escorted us out of the witness room, took
Speaker 9: us back, put us back in the van, and brought
Speaker 9: us back to the parking lot where we had gathered.
Speaker 9: And that was that evening.
Speaker 2: Can you describe your feelings when it was over.
Speaker 5: It's hard to.
Speaker 9: Describe.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 9: That was about eighteen years of effort that ended up
Speaker 9: being unsuccessful. I felt awful about that. I felt awful for.
Speaker 10: For Kenny.
Speaker 9: I felt awful for Kenny's wife, his children, his mother,
Speaker 9: his extended family. He had, you know, grandchildren by that point,
Speaker 9: niece's nephews. The point of the eighteen years of representation
Speaker 9: was basically to avoid, to prevent that moment.
Speaker 2: Do you miss him?
Speaker 9: I do? I Actually, you know, I think about him.
Speaker 9: His birthday was July fourth, so I was thinking about
Speaker 9: him then and I think about him often.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me a little bit more about Sorry?
Speaker 9: I'm sorry, you know, I wish I could. Every time
Speaker 9: I tell this story, I wish I could tell it
Speaker 9: with a.
Speaker 10: Different ending and a different beginning. For that matter, we'll
Speaker 10: be right back, good night.
Speaker 4: State of Alabama started carrying out the execution of Kennethy
Speaker 4: Gene Smith by nitrogenpoxia at the WILLIAMS. Holman Correction Facility
Speaker 4: of Smith was executed for the nineteen eighty eight capital
Speaker 4: murder of Elizabeth Orleans Senate in Calvert County.
Speaker 2: After it was all over, John Q. Haam, the Commissioner
Speaker 2: of the Alabama Department of Corrections, held a press conference
Speaker 2: as he always does, podium, big banner right behind him
Speaker 2: with the words professionalism, integrity, accountability, Charles and Elizabeth sentences.
Speaker 2: Two sons stand off to the side.
Speaker 7: Commissioner mister Smith appeared to shake him ride on the
Speaker 7: gurry for at least two minutes at the start of
Speaker 7: the execution.
Speaker 4: Was that expected period that one Smith was holding his
Speaker 4: breath as long as he could, and then there's also
Speaker 4: information out there he struggled against his restraints a little bit,
Speaker 4: but there's some involuntary movement and some agniballe breathing. So
Speaker 4: that was all expected. And then the side effects that
Speaker 4: we've seen of researched on lecrogen the box here. So
Speaker 4: nothing was out of the order of what.
Speaker 2: We were expecting, nothing out of the ordinary, just what
Speaker 2: they were expecting. Then more questions.
Speaker 5: He appeared conscious for the first several minutes.
Speaker 3: Do you agree with that?
Speaker 7: The Attorney General's Office in Port Filing said they thought
Speaker 7: with Migraten would cost a lack of consciousness within seconds.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I couldn't really see his face from where I was sitting.
Speaker 2: Y'all might have had a better view.
Speaker 8: Of that anytimes to implement this method for future and
Speaker 8: mains on Destoh.
Speaker 4: That's this is a state law for the state of Alabama.
Speaker 4: That nation POxy is one of the three methods of execution.
Speaker 4: So thenmates choose it, then that's the method we will use.
Speaker 2: Then, came a press release from the Alabama Attorney General's Office.
Speaker 2: Alabama has achieved something historic. It went on despite the
Speaker 2: international effort by activists to undermine and disparage our states
Speaker 2: justice system and to deny justice to the victims of
Speaker 2: heinous murders. Our proven method offers a blueprint for other
Speaker 2: states and a warning to those who would contemplate shedding
Speaker 2: innocent blood. This is an important night for Liz Senett's family,
Speaker 2: for justice and for the rule of law in our
Speaker 2: great nation. As an affair, and in his madness, sees
Speaker 2: no alternative but to kill his wife, he recruits two
Speaker 2: troubled young men who take the fall. Both of those
Speaker 2: men are redeemed. While in prison, they discover their capacity
Speaker 2: to love and to be loved. But that is of
Speaker 2: no concern for the state of Alabama, which executes the
Speaker 2: first by setting his lungs on fire, and executes the
Speaker 2: second twice, first in spirit and then in fact letting
Speaker 2: him combulse on the gurney, because no one bothered to
Speaker 2: check whether a method that is not even worthy of
Speaker 2: lab rats was a good idea for human beings. The
Speaker 2: cascade begins in obliviousness, then proceeds from indifference to cruelty,
Speaker 2: and ends in revision when a senior elected official of
Speaker 2: an American state looks back over a thirty six year
Speaker 2: long cascade of moral failure and declares, without irony, Alabama
Speaker 2: has achieved something historic. Do you remember the last conversation
Speaker 2: you had with them.
Speaker 6: We still were very much talking about what his options
Speaker 6: were and legally, and I didn't know it was going
Speaker 6: to be my last conversation with him, you know. So
Speaker 6: once it got very close to the warrant, I had said,
Speaker 6: you know, I'm here. Anybody would like me to do
Speaker 6: anything to assist with this post traumatic stress or anything,
Speaker 6: please contact me, you know, And but he started to
Speaker 6: really have to focus on what he was about to do.
Speaker 6: You know what was about to happen to him. So
Speaker 6: I wrote him a letter at the end, and I
Speaker 6: sent it to him. I just wrote him a little
Speaker 6: paragraph and I just said that what it had meant
Speaker 6: to work with him. They gave it to him, I
Speaker 6: guess the day before, and I just said, you know,
Speaker 6: your spirit is just you know, irrepressible, and you're I
Speaker 6: did say I liked this because it was true with Kenny.
Speaker 6: I said, your ability to build relationships behind walls is
Speaker 6: nothing less than miraculous. Because that's really what I felt
Speaker 6: about him. You know, he built relationships, real ones with
Speaker 6: his loved ones.
Speaker 1: M and that's not easy. It's not easy when we're
Speaker 1: not in prison.
Speaker 2: You know, where were you when he was finally executed.
Speaker 1: Oh? I was home.
Speaker 6: So I I have this thing I do where I
Speaker 6: you know, I talked to the lawyers always before and
Speaker 6: say we're all.
Speaker 1: Being stuff and obviously if anyone needs me, and then.
Speaker 6: I usually tell my kids and we're going to light
Speaker 6: a candle, and we light a candle for the person.
Speaker 6: And usually I put some something pretty with the candle
Speaker 6: and then take a picture of it. And I always
Speaker 6: send the picture of the candle to the lawyers and
Speaker 6: just say, you know, I'm remembering Kenny right now and
Speaker 6: whatever he's going going through. And then I usually have
Speaker 6: a glass of wine and feel like shit, what are
Speaker 6: you thinking?
Speaker 1: May I ask?
Speaker 6: I'm sorry. Right, it's a lot to think about. And
Speaker 6: you know, the normal thing we do we make meaning, right,
Speaker 6: is we think about other losses.
Speaker 1: Think.
Speaker 6: You think about what the person's family went through. You
Speaker 6: think what you would go through if that was happening,
Speaker 6: you know. So it's this is what being a human is.
Speaker 6: It's like when you put your mind in this place,
Speaker 6: it's a lot. It's a lot.
Speaker 2: Revisionist History is produced by Lucy Sullivan, Benda daff Haffrey,
Speaker 2: and Nina Bird Lawrence. Additional reporting by Benda daff Haffrey
Speaker 2: and Lee Hedgebeth. Our editor is Karen Schakerji, fact checking
Speaker 2: by Kate Furby. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Production
Speaker 2: support from Luke Klement, Engineering by Nina Bird Lawrence. Original
Speaker 2: music was composed, arranged, and recorded by Luis Querra, with
Speaker 2: additional composition and recording by Paul Brainerd. Drums by Jimmy Bott,
Speaker 2: sound design and additional music by Jake Gorsky. Cover art
Speaker 2: for the season was designed by Sean Karney and special
Speaker 2: thanks to a whole host of people who helped us out.
Speaker 2: The good folks at Audible who came to our table
Speaker 2: reads Tali Emlin, Randy Suskin at the Equal Justice Initiative
Speaker 2: in Montgomery who helped us out with research, Mike Cooley
Speaker 2: of the Drive By Truckers and at Pushkin, Greta Cone,
Speaker 2: Jacob Weisberg, Sarah Nix, Nicole opten Bosch, Jasmine Faustino, Christina Sullivan,
Speaker 2: Amy Gaines, McQuaid, Grace Ross, Eric Sandler, Morgan Ratner, Kira Posey,
Speaker 2: Jordan McMillan, Jake Flanagan, Owen Miller, Fara de Grange, and
Speaker 2: Sarah Buguer. H'm Malcolm glava
Speaker 1: O