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When Kenneth Smith first reached out to Reverend Jeff Hood to be with him throughout his January execution, Smith’s first query was: “Are you ready to die to be my non secular advisor?”
“Properly, in fact, that was completely stunning,” Hood says on the eve of Smith’s deliberate loss of life. “He knew that I used to be intense sufficient or trustworthy sufficient with regard to my work that I might most likely signal a waiver. I signed the waiver to indicate Kenny that I used to be dedicated to him.”
Smith, an Alabama inmate scheduled to be put to loss of life Thursday night, shall be making a sort of macabre historical past when he enters the loss of life chamber at William C. Holman Correctional Facility. He’ll be the primary particular person set to be put to loss of life by nitrogen fuel, a way of execution by asphyxiation that has by no means been utilized in the US — and Hood shall be at his facet all through the untested course of. “I believe it’s necessary to say that that is the primary time in human historical past that different people who find themselves not being executed are at a menace of being executed,” says Hood, who claims the power has not supplied him with a security plan. The jail didn’t instantly reply to Rolling Stone‘s request for remark. “My youngsters are terrified. My spouse is doing the most effective she will.”
The street to the loss of life chamber has been an extended one for Smith, who was sentenced to loss of life in 1989 for the 1988 murder-for-hire of Elizabeth Sennett. Pastor Charles Sennett Sr. enlisted Smith, together with two others, to kill his spouse at their dwelling for her life insurance coverage cash.
Sennett killed himself quickly after he was named as a suspect, whereas Billy Grey Williams, one of many employed palms who was not current on the homicide, died in jail in 2020, and John Forrest Parker, who additionally participated within the killing, was executed in 2010. Smith was initially given the loss of life penalty, however after an appeals courtroom ordered a brand new trial, a jury voted for him to spend life in jail with out the opportunity of parole. The decide, nonetheless, overruled the jury and sentenced Smith to loss of life 1996, a follow that’s not allowed in Alabama.
In 2022, Smith survived a botched try at execution by deadly injection, and in Might of 2023, the Supreme Courtroom denied an enchantment by state officers to as soon as once more try to execute Smith by way of that technique. Smith opted for deadly fuel as an alternative, despite the fact that the method had not but been examined. Nonetheless, in line with the Marshall Challenge, deadly injection has been in flux for many years — ever since pharmaceutical corporations began declining to promote these medication to prisons, and the horrors of botched executions started to be highlighted within the press. “I’m nonetheless affected by the primary execution and now we’re doing this once more,” Smith advised the Guardian of his personal expertise. “They received’t let me even have post-traumatic stress dysfunction — you already know, that is ongoing stress dysfunction.”
Wednesday, the excessive courtroom as soon as once more dominated that Smith could possibly be put to loss of life, this time by way of nitrogen fuel, which his attorneys have argued might go away Smith probably braindead or with extreme bodily accidents if the method is unsuccessful.
Hood met Smith after attending to a sequence of executions after the Supreme Courtroom dominated in 2022 that inmates might carry non secular advisors into the loss of life chamber. “What’s necessary to me is to inform these guys that I don’t simply minister to the soul, however I minister to the physique as properly, as a result of I don’t imagine you possibly can separate the 2,” Hood, a staunch anti-death penalty activist, says. “I inform my guys you can’t be within the soul-saving enterprise except you’re within the body-saving enterprise.”
As such, Hood has spent the final six months with Smith, getting ready for that ultimate day in addition to attempting to lift consciousness concerning the untested and probably inhumane execution technique. “I do know that is going to sound bizarre, but it surely’s nearly like my job is to change into their finest buddy,” he says. I’m changing into their finest buddy with a purpose to be there with them as they’re murdered.”
This previous week, he’s alternated between comforting Smith by way of bouts of vomiting and panic assaults and organizing protests. “He’s doing horrible,” he says of Smith. “He’s about to be experimented upon. However on the similar time, we have now labored so exhausting to get to this place the place we’re devoted. We’re gonna fill each second with love and life, love and life, love and life, love and life.”
Thursday, Hood arrived on the jail at 8 a.m. to spend the day with Smith, who won’t be allowed to eat after 10 a.m., a growth Hood mentioned he solely realized about on Wednesday. Smith’s ultimate drink and chew of meals shall be at 4 p.m. when he’ll take the Eucharist. He, his household, and Hood will then start ready for the execution, which can happen at a while after 6 p.m. Hood has not been given a time. “We’ll actually pray collectively,” he says. “Then he’ll be strapped to the gurney. I’ll go in and anoint his head with oil. By the point they arrive and get me subsequent, I’ll be going again into the chamber and he’ll have the masks on at that time.”
Hood voiced his issues about his security — and that of the attending guard — as a fuel leak might go undetected because of the poisonous nature of nitrogen and its odorless, colorless properties.
Sennett’s household additionally plan to be on the execution, which carries a far totally different which means for them than Hood. “Why ought to we have now to endure?” Elizabeth’s son Charles Sennett advised native information. “And a few of these individuals on the market say, ‘Properly, he doesn’t must endure like that.’ Properly, he didn’t ask Mama tips on how to endure? They only did it. They stabbed her a number of occasions. I’m certain if I have been in the identical state of affairs, I might be interesting my butt off too. However I believe the appeals are performed. The whole lot is completed. I don’t know what else you possibly can enchantment for.”
Hood appears to share that ultimate sentiment at the very least. “Hope dies final,” he says. “However I’m not feeling tremendous hopeful proper now.”
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