A legal battle over how death row prisoners in Alabama can be killed has reached a critical point.
But Smiths lawyers have condemned the method as untested and potentially cruel and will likely appeal the decision.
The background behind this case is lengthy.
A close-up of gauges and valve on an old nitrogen gas cylinder.Image: 7th Son Studio (Shutterstock)
Faced with this lack of supply, states have tried to find workarounds.
Some have controversially mixed alternative ingredients into their lethal drug cocktails, particularly the sedative midazolam.
But no state has attempted to go forward with such an execution until now.
U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker ultimately sided with prosecutors and rejected the injunction.
Smiths original 1989 conviction was overturned on appeal, but he was retried and convicted again in 1996.
Smiths alleged accomplice in the murder wasconvicted and executedby the state in 2010.
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