NEW YORK, January 11. /TASS/. Authorities in the US state of Alabama plan to carry out the first execution in the United States using nitrogen gas on January 25, NBC News reports, citing court files.

Lawyers for the convicted inmate facing the death penalty criticized the novel execution method as cruel and unusual punishment, which is prohibited under the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution. According to them, the Alabama authorities are using their client as a "test subject" for an unproven execution method.

Inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith was convicted of the murder-for-hire slaying of a woman in 1988. He and his accomplice had each been paid $1,000 to kill the woman. His accomplice was executed in 2010, but Smith himself survived an attempt to execute him through a lethal injection. According to the Alabama attorney general, the murdered woman’s family has waited 35 years to see justice served.

Nitrogen hypoxia is an authorized execution method in three US states but to date none has attempted to use it in an actual execution. Alabama authorized nitrogen hypoxia in 2018 amid a shortage of the drugs used for lethal injections.