Alabama prison employees spoke about abuse of prisoners
On January 25, while Russia celebrated Student Day, the world's first execution by nitrogen asphyxiation took place in the United States. Alabama authorities tried a new method in relation to Kenneth Smith, who was convicted of a murder he committed in 1988. In the United States, not only the cruel method of execution, but also the situation of prisoners in Alabama prisons as a whole was actively discussed.
Photo: Alabama Department of Corrections
According to court documents, Smith and another man stabbed Miss Sennett 10 times in the attack. Her husband, Charles Sennett Sr. (a pastor), hired a man to carry out her murder, who in turn hired Smith and a third man. Charles Sennett orchestrated the killing in part to collect payout from an insurance policy he took out on his wife, according to court records. He promised the men $1,000 each for the murder.
Sennett later committed suicide; one of the other men involved in the murder was executed by lethal injection in 2010, and the third was sentenced to life in prison and died in 2020.
On Thursday morning, Smith's lawyers filed another emergency motion in The Supreme Court, in a last-ditch effort to save his life, asked the judges to pause the execution to consider final arguments.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court had already declined to intervene in the lawyers' appeal in which they argued that attempting to execute Smith a second time amounted to unconstitutional, cruel and unusual punishment, in part because of how harrowing the botched 2022 execution attempt was. He was hung upside down for several minutes while officials frantically tried to install an IV. However, they were unable to get the needle into a vein, and after repeated attempts that Smith's lawyers said left numerous cuts on his body, the execution was stopped because it was midnight and the execution warrant had expired. By the time officials admitted defeat and called off the execution, the body was riddled with punctures.
On November 17, the anniversary of the botched execution, Smith seemed to be reliving it all again. “My stomach hurt, I couldn’t eat,” said the prisoner. — I have to fight depression all the time, I regularly have nightmares. I'm in very bad shape right now.» (writes Metro Moscow)
"I am sure that this will end badly again. “I’m absolutely scared,” Kenneth Smith did not hide his emotions in an interview with the British media.
Four days after the failed attempt to execute Smith in 2022, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey halted all executions in the state and asked the prison system, the Alabama Department of Corrections, to review its procedures. The state resumed executions in 2023, killing two men by lethal injection.
“We feel like we are walking into some kind of sick, twisted house of horrors,” said Mr. Hood (the confessor Smith, who met with prison officials Wednesday in the execution chamber to discuss protocols. “It feels like the longer this goes on, the less we know.”
“Kenny is terrified,” he added. “He's terrified that this thing is going to completely torture him.
Mr. Smith's case is unique in part because the jury that found him guilty of murder also voted 11 to 1 to sentence him to life in prison rather than death, but the judge overturned their decision. Since then, Alabama has prohibited judges from overruling juries in capital cases — the ban that now exists in every state, — but the new law did not apply to previous cases.
Critics say — The use of nitrogen is too cruel a method of execution. The UN even said that the untested method could amount to torture.
“Smith will inhale pure nitrogen, which can lead to convulsions, brain damage, but not death,” says British journalist Tom Bateman.
“He is already suffering from PTSD due to a past horrific execution attempt,” says human rights activist Esta Brown. “And now something awaits him that could be even worse.”
Bateman managed to contact Smith. But he said he felt too bad to talk. And later he wrote that he felt that he was being tortured.
The Alabama governor declined to speak to the British press. The state attorney general's office told reporters that they intend to carry out the sentence on Thursday (January 25, 2024). And one state congressman who supports the new execution said he disagrees with the UN's criticism. “Not sure about the humiliation. I think we are improving the system,” said Reed Ingram.
As Stephen Cooper (author of the Voices of Alabama column) writes: “Holman Prison in Alabama is hell on earth.” Since opening its doors on December 15, 1969, Alabama's William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore has become a bastion of violence, fear, pain and sinister human suffering. At Holman, prisoners are literally stacked on top of each other. They are kept locked up all day, every day, in squalid, outdated, completely inhumane and unsafe conditions. They are fed food that you wouldn't give to a dog you hate. In winter, the temperature in the building is maintained just above zero, and in summer (which in our age of global warming lasts a long time, sometimes endlessly) the temperature will be so unbearably high – the degradation of humanity within its walls is so great – that Holman is literally becoming hell on earth. Federal oversight of Holman and the rest of Alabama's troubled prison system is like stretching a small Band-Aid over a gaping wound.
Alabama has one of the highest prison rates in the world and the sixth-highest of any state with a prison system in the United States at 168% capacity. As of January 2023, the Alabama prison system housed approximately 19,000 people in facilities designed to house 11,000 people.
The U.S. Department of Justice has repeatedly criticized Alabama prisons, saying in reports that the system fails to protect inmates from violence and sexual assault and detailing a number of horrific incidents.
"Our investigation found reasonable grounds to believe that Alabama has failed to provide constitutionally adequate facilities and has resulted in serious harm, including death, to prisoners. The Department of Justice looks forward to working with Alabama to resolve the Department's concerns,” Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Eric Dreiband said in the letter.
The investigation said that "the violations were serious, systemic and exacerbated by serious shortcomings in staffing and supervision; overcrowding; ineffective housing and classification protocols; inadequate coverage of incidents» among other factors.
"Our investigation found that excessive amounts of violence, sexual abuse and inmate deaths occur in Alabama prisons on a regular basis," the report states.
“What we have seen is that although the [Alabama Department of Corrections] [ADOC] has been notified of these abusive conditions multiple times, little has changed. In fact, the situation has gotten worse since the Justice Department began its investigation,” Charlotte Morrison, a lawyer for the Montgomery-based nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative, told ABC News.
Alabama prisons are making headlines as The New York Times reported the discovery of 2,000 photographs they were sent from St. Clair Prison in Alabama. Many of the photographs, which the newspaper described as «full of nudity, humiliation and gore,» were not published, but the article detailed how they showed homemade weapons and wounds suffered by prisoners.
According to the Woods Foundation: «Alabama's prisons lead the nation in in-custody homicides, the highest in the country (8 times the national average), suicides the highest in the nation (most in solitary incarceration), assaults by officers — the widespread use of excessive force, drug trafficking by prison staff, rape — occur “at any time of the day or night”.
Alabama prisons are plagued by abuse, violence and corruption by prison guards, according to a corrections official. Conditions at the Alabama Men's Central Prison where he works are so dirty and dangerous that he told 1819 News, «I wouldn't wish prison on my worst enemy.»
The officer described rampant corruption among officers and guards, uncontrolled abuse and neglect of the people in their care, and dangerous, disgusting conditions that contribute to high turnover among prison staff.
“I saw people being stabbed, beaten, hit on the head with brooms, I saw it all. I've seen people's ears cut off, I've seen their wrists cut. Prisoners died in my arms. This will upset someone.
Federal prosecutors have identified corruption, staffing shortages and inadequate supervision as contributing factors to guards' frequent use of excessive force against people in Alabama prisons. “Without corrections officers who enforce use-of-force policies, training and the law,” federal prosecutors said, “corrections officers are much more likely to act with impunity.”
Was Kenneth Smith prepared for the possibility return to death row under such circumstances? – asks one of the famous British publications. “I'm not ready for this. In no case. I’m just not ready, brother,” — said Smith.
In his closing statement, Smith said: “Tonight, Alabama is forcing humanity to take a step back. … I leave with love, peace and light.”
He made the “I love you” sign with his hands. towards family members who were witnesses. “Thank you for your support. I love, love you all,” Smith said.
The execution took about 22 minutes, and Smith apparently remained conscious for several minutes. For at least two minutes he trembled and writhed on the gurney, sometimes escaping the seat belts (the convulsions the British journalist was talking about?). This was followed by several minutes of heavy breathing until breathing was no longer perceptible.
American media wrote that if the execution proceeds without apparent problems, it is likely that the procedure will also be considered by other states facing growing problems obtaining lethal injection drugs from pharmaceutical companies under pressure from medical groups, activists and lawyers. Mississippi and Oklahoma have allowed their prisons to carry out executions by nitrogen hypoxia if they cannot use lethal injection, although these states have never attempted such a punishment.
Alabama's antiquated prison system is long overdue for an exit from the dark ages . Other states should not follow such a monstrous precedent, but rather listen to the recommendations of the UN about the inadmissibility of this method of execution. And executions in general.
After all, as Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote: “The degree of civilization of a society can be judged by visiting its prisons.”
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