Alabama
Alabama Plans to Carry Out the First Execution Using Nitrogen Gas. A Lot Could Go Wrong.

The first time Jeff Rieber said goodbye to his longtime friend Kenneth Eugene Smith, the two men hugged and cried, their embrace inhibited by Smith’s handcuffs. The pair had spent roughly 30 years together on Alabama’s death row at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, first bonding over their interest in the law and love of rock ‘n’ roll, then learning each other’s secrets and weaknesses and sharing the connection that came with witnessing more than 50 of their neighbors taken to the death chamber. But friends on the row came with an expiration date, and Smith’s had arrived.
As Smith’s execution began that evening in November 2022, the building shook as Rieber and his neighbors banged on the steel doors of their cells, a tradition meant to show solidarity. It usually took a while for news of an execution’s outcome to reach death row. Sometimes that came in the form of watching a body being loaded into a coroner’s vehicle. Smith, however, left the death chamber alive. Officials had called off his execution.
“I was blown away,” Rieber told The Intercept in a telephone interview. The celebration that erupted on death row soon turned to anger as they learned that executioners had stuck Smith with needles for two hours as they tried, and failed, to establish IV access to deliver lethal drugs. Smith was the second person in Alabama that year, and the third in four years, to survive execution because of problems finding a vein. Smith is “universally loved” on death row, Rieber said, and his neighbors were upset about what happened. “There was a lot of anger, a lot of unrest, a lot of tension. And the tension is building again.”
Alabama is slated to execute Smith on January 25. This time, the state is planning to suffocate him with nitrogen gas, an untested method that has never been used in an execution. Experts retained by Smith’s lawyers have warned that Alabama’s protocol could cause Smith to suffer a stroke, choke to death on vomit, or be left in a vegetative state.
The Alabama Department of Corrections, or ADOC, is planning to administer the gas through a hose hooked up to a respirator mask, but the state has kept many of the specifics a secret. “Within seconds, Smith will have no available oxygen to breathe inside the mask,” a court document filed last month by the office of Attorney General Steve Marshall stated. “That will render him unconscious and cause death.”
“Alabama has chosen to pick somebody they just tortured to use as a guinea pig for a brand-new method.”
In the face of the unknown, the state has offered little scientific evidence or expertise to assuage concerns, primarily relying on internal tests to ensure the system will work as planned. Smith’s lawyers, who are challenging the execution method, have accused the department of flouting safety guidelines and ignoring warnings from an expert in assisted suicide about the unreliability of the equipment they intend to use. In depositions, ADOC officials have acknowledged foregoing medical advice that could protect against problems arising during the execution.
Rieber likened Smith’s execution to a science experiment. “Alabama has chosen to pick somebody they just tortured to use as a guinea pig for a brand-new method because the one they used before didn’t work,” he said.
Alabama’s lethal injection chamber at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Ala., on Oct. 7, 2002.
Smith was sentenced to death for his role in a 1988 murder-for-hire plot. Charles Sennett, a minister in the Church of Christ, recruited Smith and John Forrest Parker to kill his wife, Elizabeth, at their home in northwestern Alabama. The pair were paid $900 each, court documents show. Sennett died by suicide a week after the killing. Parker was sentenced to death and executed in 2010.
Smith was convicted of capital murder in 1989, but the courts ordered that his case be retried because the prosecution had illegally struck Black jurors. At his second trial, in 1996, the jury voted 11-1 to spare Smith’s life and sentence him to life without parole. Because judicial override was legal in Alabama until 2017, however, the judge was able to quash the jury’s recommendation and sentence him to death.
Alabama’s first attempt to carry out Smith’s death sentence was part of a string of botched executions in the state. Executioners jabbed needles in Smith’s arms and hands, according to a filing by his lawyers, then tilted the gurney in an “inverse crucifixion position.” They injected him with an “unknown substance” believed to be a sedative or anesthetic, the lawyers wrote, arguing that the execution subjected Smith to cruel and unusual punishment. The state denied placing Smith in this position or administering a sedative, which would run afoul of official policy. An executioner proceeded to use a large needle to try to establish IV access in Smith’s collarbone. The experience left Smith with “severe physical pain and emotional trauma,” he wrote in an affidavit.
Alabama lawmakers authorized nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method in 2018 after legal challenges alleging that condemned people had remained awake during painful lethal injections held up the state’s ability to carry out death sentences. The move followed the passage of similar bills in Oklahoma and Mississippi. Former Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian asked his legislature to adopt the method after watching the BBC documentary “How to Kill a Human Being,” which followed a British Parliament member-turned-journalist in his search for the perfect execution method. “It’s foolproof,” Christian said of nitrogen hypoxia.
The method works by depriving the brain of oxygen and replacing it with nitrogen, an odorless gas that makes up 78 percent of the earth’s atmosphere but is lethal when inhaled on its own. Nitrogen poisoning has killed nearly 100 people since 1992 in accidents at industrial plants, laboratories, and medical facilities. Since introducing nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method, however, neither Oklahoma nor Mississippi has come up with a way to carry it out. Oklahoma has reverted to lethal injection.
ADOC released a heavily redacted protocol last summer that detailed how it would carry out Smith’s execution.
The execution team will strap the mask on Smith’s face and monitor his oxygen levels with a pulse oximeter. Smith will pray and deliver his final statement with the mask on, according to the protocol. Officials then plan to administer nitrogen gas for either 15 minutes or five minutes after a flat line shows that Smith’s heart has stopped beating.
Not much is known about the architects of ADOC’s plans. Officials have been tight-lipped about the manufacturer of the system, making it difficult to evaluate its efficacy. They have also kept the nitrogen supplier a secret, although the gas is widely available for purchase. The state has entered into publicly available contracts with just two companies related to the use of nitrogen gas, and both have denied creating the protocol.
In 2019, officials hired FDR Safety, a workplace safety consultancy in Tennessee, to “research process methods,” “conduct task-based risk assessment,” “develop job instructions including safety requirements,” and “conduct hazard communication training.” The company terminated its contract in 2022 after pressure from anti-death penalty activists. Alabama refused to disclose its contract with FDR Safety or any reports the company drafted. Chief Operating Officer Steve Hawkins has maintained that his employees did not work on the execution protocol.
“The work that FDR Safety performed was limited to protecting the health and safety of the guards who work for the Alabama Department of Corrections,” Hawkins said in a statement at the time. “It was in no way associated directly with the protocols used to administer capital punishment.
Officials also tapped Daniel Buffington, a Florida pharmacist and founder of the drug consulting firm Clinical Pharmacology Services, to consult on nitrogen gas. An investigation we conducted for ProPublica found that Buffington made at least $354,000 testifying in favor of states’ lethal injection protocols between 2015 and 2023 and that his testimony “seemed to be exaggerating or misrepresenting the scope of what he could do as a licensed pharmacist.” (Buffington contested the investigation’s findings.)
In a 2022 interview, Buffington told us that he was asked by Alabama to answer questions “for a very brief period of time … about the pharmacology of the substances.” He said he did not perform any work on the state’s protocol.
The attorney general’s office and ADOC did not respond to questions from The Intercept about the development of the execution protocol.

As director of the assisted suicide organization Exit International, retired physician Philip Nitschke has spent more than two decades developing expertise in elective death procedures via lethal drugs, poisons, and gases like nitrogen, earning him the moniker “Dr. Death.”
Nitschke recently developed a euthanasia pod, an enclosed device that fills with nitrogen with the push of a button. But the way Alabama planned to conduct its nitrogen executions alarmed him. His work in the assisted suicide movement taught him that masks were ineffective, he said, because they failed to protect against leaks that could introduce outside oxygen. It was his opinion that the execution method would not bring about a “peaceful, reliable death.”
Facial hair could break the mask’s seal, Nitschke said, prolonging the process of dying even when people were fully cooperative. In other instances, facial muscles relaxed once unconsciousness kicked in, loosening the mask. In Alabama, Nitschke warned, these problems could prohibit enough nitrogen from reaching Smith and leave him in a vegetative state with permanent brain damage.
“Problems of mask fit, facial hair, and dynamic changes associated with alteration of the user’s facial and or muscle tone (as consciousness is lost or the person speaks) have been found to be unsolvable,” Nitschke, whom Smith’s team retained as an expert witness, wrote in a November court declaration. “The smallest air leak greatly increases the time to loss of consciousness and uncertainty regarding the outcome.”
Officials have dismissed those concerns. ADOC Commissioner John Hamm testified in a December deposition that he wasn’t aware that the mask needed to be airtight, a claim that Smith’s lawyers say contradicts the user manual.
Another doctor retained by Smith’s legal team warned that oxygen leaking into the mask could cause Smith to suffer a stroke or be left brain dead, which the state rejected as speculative. The doctor also said that Smith might vomit inside the mask, causing him to die by choking. Hamm said that his team considered that possibility but did not seek medical advice to mitigate the risk and will not intervene if Smith vomits once nitrogen starts flowing.
“If the person vomits while the nitrogen is engaged, we know that we cannot remove that mask,” ADOC Regional Director Cynthia Stewart confirmed in a December deposition.
“So you just let them sit there with the vomit in the mask?” Smith’s lawyer asked.
“They won’t know,” she replied. “They will be unconscious and probably deceased.”
Public documents show that officials have relied on state employees to conduct tests to ensure the protocol will work as intended.
After Nitschke laid out his initial concerns about Alabama’s protocol, Stewart wrote in an affidavit that she had “observed multiple persons wearing the mask with supplied breathing air, and none have reported any problems breathing.” She added, “I have also worn the mask under these conditions, and I was able to breathe comfortably.”
But the circumstances Stewart described would be drastically different than those during an execution, Smith’s lawyers argued, because the employees were breathing oxygen rather than nitrogen and were not experiencing the feelings associated with being executed. “Defendants’ evidence amounts to nothing more than their assurances that nothing will go wrong,” they wrote.
In an experiment conducted in August, ADOC officials placed the mask on top of sheets and a towel, according to a brief submitted by Smith’s legal team in December. An oxygen monitor was positioned beneath the mask to “document how quickly the oxygen decreased in the mask after the introduction of nitrogen,” a relevant metric to determine how quickly someone might become unconscious.
Dr. Joseph Antognini, a retired anesthesiologist who regularly testifies on behalf of states defending new execution methods, observed this demonstration and evaluated the nitrogen system at Holman. Antognini “did not find any issues related to how the air and nitrogen will be delivered,” Smith’s lawyers wrote, but he had limited experience administering gasses through a mask and did not evaluate how the mask would fit on Smith.
“I think that the trials effectively show very little at all, and I wouldn’t be drawing too much comfort from it.”
Nitschke said his fears about Alabama’s new method were confirmed when Smith’s lawyers invited him to Holman last month to evaluate the system for himself.
He was given the chance to replicate Smith’s experience up until the introduction of nitrogen. After climbing onto the execution gurney and having the mask strapped onto his head, it filled with oxygen, he told The Intercept. Nitschke discovered that by simply straining his jaw, he could displace the mask’s straps, a feature he said could introduce an oxygen leak.
Nitschke also said he was shown about a half dozen videos of tests that Alabama had conducted on the mask. He remained unconvinced that the execution would proceed as planned.
“I think that the trials effectively show very little at all, and I wouldn’t be drawing too much comfort from it,” he said. Referring to state officials, he added, “I’m surprised that they provide them with much comfort.”

Kenneth Eugene Smith pictured with his spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeff Hood, on Jan. 22, 2024.
Smith’s lawyers are continuing to challenge the state’s use of nitrogen hypoxia in the courts. Last week, they filed an appeal with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after a lower court judge rejected Smith’s claims that he had been unfairly singled out for execution and the method violated his constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. Meanwhile, they asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay to review whether it’s constitutional for officials to try to execute Smith twice. “It will be only the second time in U.S. history that a state follows through with a second execution attempt after a previous, failed attempt,” the lawyers wrote.
Smith’s legal team is also urging Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to halt Smith’s execution because of proposed legislation that would give people sentenced to death by judicial override a chance at resentencing. As governor, Ivey has the power to grant Smith clemency. Since taking office in 2017, however, she has overseen 13 executions and rejected all clemency applications submitted by people on death row, including Smith’s.
In an emailed statement to The Intercept on Monday, Ivey said that the current law on judicial override “honors the promises made to the family members of capital murder victims who have long waited for closure and justice.” She was optimistic about Alabama becoming the first state to carry out an execution with nitrogen. “This method has been thoroughly vetted,” she said. “I am confident we are ready to move forward.”
Smith has been nauseous and vomiting, according to a medical report filed by his lawyers. Doctors have prescribed him an anti-nausea medication. A judge on Monday refused to consider how that would weigh on his execution.
If the courts greenlight Smith’s execution, Smith’s spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeff Hood, will be present in the execution chamber. Hood invited the governor to join him, he said, but has not received a response.
Rieber plans to do what he always does. He’ll join others on death row in beating on the doors around 6 p.m., then try not to pay attention to the clock. It’s customary for people scheduled for execution to give away their belongings. Smith, an artist, gave Rieber two paintings. One, of a red betta fish, Smith painted recently. The other, of puppies, Smith made in the 1990s, when the two men first became friends. The paintings hang opposite one another in Rieber’s cell, an arrangement he hopes will protect them from fading in the sun.
Rieber knows his opinion of Alabama’s turn to nitrogen gas might ring hollow because he’s on death row for killing someone himself. But he shared it anyway. “Every time there’s a change in method, it’s always supposed to be a more humane method,” he said. “We’re waiting for people to understand that it’s not the method that’s humane or inhumane. It’s the killing of other citizens.”
“There’s not a method they can come up with that’s going to make people happy and content with killing.”
This story was supported by a grant from Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights, in conjunction with Arnold Ventures.

Alabama
Nick Saban’s daughter weighs in on coaching return rumor
As SEC media days wrapped up in Atlanta Thursday, its main Alabama football storyline came to a tidy end. Nick Saban’s daughter, Kristen, shut down any hope of her father leaving retirement, in an Instagram story post.
“He’s not coming back to coaching, hate to break it to you,” Kristen Saban wrote. “You had your time.”
The speculation that the 73-year-old man who won six national championships with the Crimson Tide would come out of retirement began Monday. Former Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy said he had heard from someone “in the know” that Saban might not be done coaching, despite leaving his post as UA’s head coach in January of 2024.
McElroy created the news during his radio show on WJOX. Throughout the rest of media days, he tried to put out the fire, noting that he himself did not believe Saban would be unretiring.
Several coaches were asked about the possibility of Saban returning. Ole Miss head coach and former Alabama offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin said it wouldn’t surprise him, but Georgia’s Kirby Smart, who had long tenure as the Tide’s defensive coordinator did not sound as if he expected a move from his old boss.
“I heard all that scuttlebutt and everything about it, I almost laughed,” Smart said. “It was like somebody needed something interesting to talk about yesterday, so they chose to go to coach Saban and do it. The game’s better with him involved. He is involved. He is passionate about it. He and I still talk and share ideas from time to time about defensive philosophies and the way to do things.
“And he’s still watching tape and very, very involved in football. He loves it. And his brilliance, as brilliant as he is, is around football. I mean, it’s around scheme. It’s around another way to do something, to stay ahead of the offensive minds. And I think that’s one of the unique talents that he has, and he still loves that. He’s still passionate about that.”
With the return to coaching not happening, Saban will likely continue on his prior retirement trajectory. He won an Emmy for his first season as an analyst on ESPN’s College Gameday pregame show, and will return to the desk this fall.
Saban is also still technically on staff at Alabama, in a consultant role.
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Alabama
Alabama collects receipts and displays accountability at SEC Media Days 2025

The kickoff to the upcoming SEC season begins where it will end in December, though the SEC Championship Game will be played at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Before toe meets leather to kick off the 2025 slate of football game, players and coaches meet with the media to talk about what lies ahead. Each day, AL.com will provide a daily recap from each day with key moments and interesting nuggets of information you might have missed.
Elephants (and Alabama) never forget…
Florida State quarterback Thomas Castellanos lit a fuse earlier this summer as saying that “they don’t have Nick Saban to save them”. That sparked anger and fired up current and former Crimson Tide players, well ahead of the Alabama season opener at Florida State.
For the first time since those comments, members of the Alabama football team had to address them with the media present at media days. Alabama defensive tackle Tim Keenan authored a short, but direct response to the FSU transfer QB’s comments saying, “the disrespect will be addressed”.
Tide linebacker Deontae Lawson also chimed in saying, “all disrespect will be addressed accordingly”.
It remains pretty clear that Alabama has taken Castellanos’ words personally, and any backfield interactions in Week 1 might have a bit more spice to them.
DeBoer talks Alabama standard
It was his first year on the job at Alabama, and despite the nine-win season, Kalen DeBoer knows better.
While taking the main stage at inside the College Football Hall of Fame, Alabama’s head coach addressed the fact that there is a standard at Alabama, of success, in winning bowl games and ultimately, competing for championships. Something they didn’t do last season with a 9-4 record. Something DeBoer put bluntly while talking with the media.
“If you internally ask us, no,” DeBoer said. “We fell short of making the playoffs. It’s as simple as that, right? Giving yourself a chance to go compete for a championship. I think there’s a lot of things that I’m super proud of that have happened within the program that are part of the progression. Yeah, we want it right now, too.”
The “Alabama standard” has been established, officially. It’s now up to DeBoer, the staff and the players to live up to it over 12 weeks in the fall.
Auburn getting some preseason love from who?!
Throughout the lead up to media days, pundits, experts and armchair experts like to make their picks for who may surprise in a certain league or division.
Usually, it’s a team that finished in the middle and or lower half the previous season. A perfect spot for a team like Auburn to be discussed, right? Correct. That’s not the surprise; it is the person who delivered said surprise.
While handicapping the SEC title contenders, former Alabama quarterback and ESPN analyst Greg McElroy tabbed the Auburn Tigers as his sleeper pick, noting their potential with the weapons on offense and talented defense.
Oklahoma shows love to Arnold
The realities of the transfer portal mean that the bonds you create with teammates may last a year, two years, and if you’re lucky it goes throughout your entire college career.
For former Oklahoma QB Jackson Arnold, his time with the OU program lasted two seasons (2023-24) before transferring to Auburn this past spring. When Oklahoma took their place in front of the media, Sooners head coach Brent Venables and the players discussed Jackson at length.
Venables talked about how Arnold handled tough moments and went as far as saying he wanted to keep the new Auburn signal-caller.
When asked about Arnold, former teammate Robert Spears-Jennings remarked about the positive attitude, and R Mason Thomas lauded his professionalism when faced with adversity last season.
Oklahoma and Auburn meet again, this time in Norman, OK on Sept. 20.
Jordan Rodgers gets flashbacks
Being a football player means you’re going to have some hits you don’t remember. Then you have some that you absolutely, positively never forget, and think about so much you wake up in a cold sweat years later.
He may have not woken up in a cold sweat, but it was clear that Jordan Rodgers remembers when he and Mark Barron met when the former Vanderbilt quarterback played Alabama in 2011.
What to watch on Thursday
Thursday in Atlanta is the final day of SEC Media Days 2025. The teams that will take the stage are Kentucky, Missouri, Texas A&M, and Arkansas.
Two schools who are looking to make a breakthrough into the playoff (Missouri, Texas A&M) and two schools with coaches who may need a big season, to return to media days next year in 2026 (Arkansas and Kentucky).
Along with those teams hitting the stage, the preseason predictions for the order of finish and All-SEC preseason teams will be announced soon after. And the only thing left after that is the opening of fall camps, then the season.
Football in the south is on the horizon, just a few more weeks.
Click the following links for recaps from Monday and Tuesday at SEC Media Days. For more on SEC Media Days, visit AL.com for the latest from Atlanta.
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Alabama
Nearly 50 arrested following federal search warrants served across Alabama

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – A complex and years long investigation has led to nearly 50 illegal immigrants being arrested across Alabama.
Federal agents served 14 search warrants in lee, Macon, Elmore, Autauga, Crenshaw and Baldwin counties.
The El Patron Mexican restaurant in Robertsdale was one of the targets.
According to the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama Kevin Davidson, these searches led to more than just arrests.
“Law enforcement recovered distribution amounts of methamphetamine powder, cocaine, crack, cocaine, assorted pills, more than $100,000 of bulk cash, and at least 20 guns,” Davidson said.
At the center of this investigation is Cesar Campos Reyes, who according to FBI Mobile, surrendered himself in Lee County hours after the search warrants were served.
According to a federal indictment, Campos Reyes fraudulently obtained a Paycheck Protection Program loan by falsely certifying documents tied to restaurants that were raided today. Federal agents say the loan funds totaled around $225,000.
Federal agents also going to other El Patron locations in Wetumpka, Opelika and Prattville.
Campos Reyes is said to be the registered agent for the businesses.
Steven Schrank, special agent in charge for HSI in Alabama and Georgia, said this investigation has uncovered a bigger issue.
“This operation was not about any one offense. It was about dismantling a criminal ecosystem, one that profits from the exploitation of people in the circumvention of our nation’s laws,” Schrank said. “In many of the locations we investigated, we uncovered, not only unlawful, unauthorized employment of aliens, but evidence that may point to a broader pattern of criminal conduct.”
Schrank also said businesses who knowingly hire non-citizens are creating a path for other problems.
“When employers knowingly hire illegal aliens, they create a magnet for exploitation, wage theft and unsafe conditions,” he said. “They also sidestep labor laws designed to protect workers, and dissuade honest employers. This creates an underground economy that is often tied to organized criminal activity and puts our communities at risk.”
Federal investigators also said Campos Reyes is the registered agent at the El Patron restaurant in Pensacola.
Although we’re told that business wasn’t raided today, when we stopped by on July 15, a sign on the door said, “closed due to an inconvenience.”

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