In her dissent, Sotomayor wrote that Alabama has shrouded its execution protocol in secrecy, releasing only a heavily redacted version. She also said Smith should be allowed to obtain evidence about the execution protocol and to proceed with his legal challenge.“That information is important not only to Smith, who has an extra reason to fear the gurney, but to anyone the State seeks to execute after him using this novel method,” Sotomayor wrote.“Twice now this Court has ignored Smith’s warning that Alabama will subject him to an unconstitutional risk of pain,” Sotomayor wrote. “I sincerely hope that he is not proven correct a second time.”Justice Elena Kagan wrote a separate dissent and was joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.In the hours ahead of the scheduled execution, Smith met with family members and his spiritual adviser, according to a prison spokesperson.He ate a final meal of T-bone steak, hash browns, toast and eggs slathered in A1 steak sauce, Hood said by telephone.“He’s terrified at the torture that could come. But he’s also at peace. One of the things he told me is he is finally getting out,” Hood said.Smith is one of two men convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of Elizabeth Sennett. Prosecutors said he and the other man were each paid $1,000 to kill Sennett on behalf of her pastor husband, who was deeply in debt and wanted to collect on insurance.Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall expressed confidence Wednesday that the execution would be allowed to proceed.“My office stands ready to carry on the fight for Liz Sennett. Two courts have now rejected Smith’s claims. I remain confident that the Supreme Court will come down on the side of justice, and that Smith’s execution will be carried out,” Marshall said.The victim’s son, Charles Sennett Jr., said in an interview with WAAY-TV that Smith “has to pay for what he’s done.”“And some of these people out there say, ‘Well, he doesn’t need to suffer like that.’ Well, he didn’t ask Mama how to suffer?” the son said. “They just did it. They stabbed her — multiple times.”Smith is to be strapped to a gurney in the execution chamber — the same one where he was strapped down for several hours during the lethal injection attempt — and a “full facepiece supplied air respirator” will be placed over his face. After he is given a chance to make a final statement, the warden, from another room, will activate the nitrogen gas. It will be administered through the mask for at least 15 minutes or “five minutes following a flatline indication on the EKG, whichever is longer,” according to the state protocol.The state has until 6 a.m. Friday to carry out the execution.Sant’Egidio Community, a Vatican-affiliated Catholic charity based in Rome, urged Alabama not to go through with the execution, saying the method is “barbarous” and “uncivilized” and would bring “indelible shame” to the state. And experts appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council cautioned they believe the execution method could violate the prohibition on torture.Some states are looking for new ways to execute people because the drugs used in lethal injections have become difficult to find. Three states — Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma — have authorized nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method, but no state has attempted to use the untested method until now.
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