Supreme Court grants Alabama inmate's request for nitrogen gas execution.

The US Supreme Court declined Alabama's request to intervene in the case of a death row inmate who seeks to die by nitrogen gas when he is ultimately executed. Kenneth Smith was convicted for the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett in a murder-for-hire plot. Smith argued the state should not try to execute him again by lethal injection, but should instead use nitrogen gas. He won his case at the lower court level. Alabama asked the Supreme Court to reverse that decision, noting that while the state legislature has approved the use of nitrogen gas, the state has yet to finalize the protocols.