The European Union has released a statement condemning both the practice of capital punishment and the method used in the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith which was carried out Thursday evening in Alabama.
"The European Union deeply regrets the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith in the State of Alabama yesterday. The EU strongly opposes the death penalty at all times and in all circumstances. It is a violation of the right to life and the ultimate denial of human dignity. The death penalty fails to act as a deterrent to crime and represents an ultimate punishment that makes miscarriages of justice irreversible," the statement read.
Smith was the first person in the United States to be executed by the inhalation of 100% nitrogen gas, a method some have deemed "cruel and unusual."
Smith was sentenced to death for the murder-for-hire plot in which he was convicted in the beating and stabbing murder of Elizabeth Sennett in 1988. Smith was hired by Sennett's then-husband Charles Sennett Sr. for the sum of $1,000 to murder Sennet in hopes of collecting on her life insurance. Sennett Sr. committed suicide in 1988.
The official statement from the Alabama Department of Corrections laid out of the precise terms of the execution beginning with, "The Alabama Supreme Court has issued an order to carry out the sentence of death of inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith and the Alabama Department of Corrections is proceeding with this statutory duty. Smith was sentenced to death for the 1988 capital murder of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett in Colbert County."
Despite being first convicted in 1989, Smith was able to stave off execution for over 30 years. Smith's accomplice in the crime, John Forrest Parker, was executed in 2010 for his role in the murder.
The EU's statement concluded with the hopes that all U.S. states eventually end the practice of capital punishment, "We call for states that maintain the death penalty to implement a moratorium and move towards abolition, in line with the worldwide trend."
As Smith had been on death row since 1996, Sennet's son, Charles 'Chuck' Sennett lamented the drawn out process he and his surviving family have endured, saying, "Alabama's judicial system sucks. They have the worst one in the union, I think. I don't know how somebody could have so many appeals, especially after admitting what they've done. It's pitiful. This should've been done 30 years ago."
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