Supreme Court rejects appeal by Alabama, allowing death row inmate to seek execution by nitrogen hypoxia

The US Supreme Court declined to hear Alabama's appeal of a lower court ruling allowing inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith to challenge the state's lethal injection method.
Smith argued that lethal injection would violate his Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment.
Alabama has approved nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method but has not finalized a protocol to use it.
Smith was sentenced to death for a 1988 murder-for-hire of a preacher's wife.
The decision comes as Alabama seeks to resume executions this summer after pausing them to review the state's lethal injection process.