Kenneth Eugene Smith executed by nitrogen hypoxia in Alabama, marking a first for the death penalty

Alabama carried out its planned execution of the condemned inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith on Thursday night using nitrogen hypoxia, a controversial and widely-contested death penalty method used for the first time in the United States. The execution took place at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore at 8:25 p.m. local time, the Associated Press reported. 

Smith and his spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeff Hood, said in a statement Thursday afternoon that "the eyes of the world are on this impending moral apocalypse."

"Our prayer is that people will not turn their heads. We simply cannot normalize the suffocation of each other," statement said.