The Alabama Murders - Part 7: The Second Warrant

Transcript

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Speaker 24 Pushkin.

Speaker 47 Previously on revisionist history.

Speaker 48 Had my wife just been murdered in my home?

Speaker 24 I couldn't tell you nothing.

Speaker 48 My mind's gone. But he knew everything in detail.

Speaker 49 That's a red flag.

Speaker 50 I can't remember how soon they figured out that, you know, the preacher had finished the job and all that, but it was, you know, it was pretty obvious, pretty quick.

Speaker 51 I just don't think some of these people that were on the jury didn't want that to be on their conscience the rest of their life,

Speaker 51 putting somebody into the death penalty.

Speaker 52 35 years.

Speaker 52 That's how long Elizabeth Sennett's family waited for justice to occur. 35 long

Speaker 54 years.

Speaker 55 He was just having severe nightmares of being executed over and over. He sort of came out of the depression and then the second execution came up.

Speaker 10 So at some point during your conversations with him, he gets his second warrant.

Speaker 53 Yeah.

Speaker 56 When is that?

Speaker 55 So he got a second warrant in November, a year later, for a January execution. So, you know, they take you, as soon as they give you the warrant, by the way, this is another particularly cruel thing.

Speaker 55 This is a man who's been 34 years. He has a cell.
He's, you know, they call it their house, their cell. So his house was nice.
You know, he had his stuff in there.

Speaker 55 And once they take you to the warden and tell you, they don't take you back to your cell. That's it.
You get put in the death chamber cell which is this totally isolated cell very hard

Speaker 57 kay porterfield the psychologist hired by kenny smith's legal team

Speaker 55 once he was given the second warrant and taken to the death chamber did you lose contact with him no no we were able to talk we talked up until about i think we talked up until about december and then he got very um

Speaker 55 you know, he turned his attention to facing what was probably going to happen. His lawyers were working very hard to still stop it.

Speaker 55 I testified in a hearing about what I believed was going to happen to him with his post-traumatic stress if he had to go through this again.

Speaker 60 And I testified, which I

Speaker 55 believe to be true, that this man was going to go into a state of such severe symptomatic PTSD as to be really just devastated. you know to be to be taken into that same thing again was going to just

Speaker 24 be

Speaker 55 you know catastrophic to his psyche. Cruel and unusual.
Yeah, well, and those words, cruel and unusual is like the legal term.

Speaker 55 And so what I was saying is this man's going to be absolutely devastated within his psyche and disorganized and

Speaker 55 completely symptomatic because he's got a severe condition that you guys did to him, by the way, that was brought about by what was done. So this was not a guy who had PTSD before this.

Speaker 56 Do you remember the first contact you had with him after he got his warrant?

Speaker 55 I mean, I remember some of it. I mean, he was very focused on fighting.
You know, he was very focused on fighting it, and he was very worried about his family. He was super worried about his mom

Speaker 55 and his grandson and his wife. So he was very focused on them.

Speaker 55 And he also

Speaker 55 said, you know, I've had the greatest lawyers. We're going to keep fighting this.
I mean, look, he was anxious. He was really starting to fall apart, but he was also trying to be focused on hope.

Speaker 9 My name is Malcolm Glabwell.

Speaker 58 You're listening to the Alabama murders.

Speaker 18 This is the final episode in our series.

Speaker 18 We started with the murder of Elizabeth Sennett on Koondog Cemetery Road, and now we're going to end with what happened in Kenny Smith's last days, the bizarre and grotesque final act to the Senate Cascade, where the state of Alabama endeavored to figure out and justify another way of executing Kenny Smith.

Speaker 20 This is episode 7, The Second Warrant.

Speaker 18 Just over a month before Kenny Smith's second execution date, his legal team made one last big push to save his life.

Speaker 5 A lawsuit.

Speaker 11 Heard in U.S. District Court in Montgomery, Alabama.

Speaker 12 Kenneth Eugene Smith v.

Speaker 7 John Q.

Speaker 63 Ham.

Speaker 64 Hamm, the defendant, is the commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections.

Speaker 11 Bulldog of a guy, maybe six feet, bald, white mustache and goatee, dark suit, white shirt, red tie. If you're curious about Ham, you can find him on YouTube, where he's a regular.

Speaker 18 He's the person in Alabama's state government whose job it is to stand up at press conferences and announce that one of his prisons has just executed another person.

Speaker 53 By order of the Alabama Supreme Court, tonight the state of Alabama carried out the execution of James Barber by lethal injection at Williams A. Holmes Prison.

Speaker 18 He answers questions about how things went.

Speaker 53 How many IDs did you need to have any of two? We had two, so there was three sticks and six

Speaker 20 And lets the world know they've done their job well.

Speaker 53 So we carried out a successful execution of the headmaters for eight above spring.

Speaker 63 John Q Ham.

Speaker 65 This is who Kenny Smith's legal team is up against.

Speaker 11 The basis of their appeal was a new method that Alabama intended to use on Kenny Smith.

Speaker 11 Having lost confidence in the ability of its execution team to find one of Kenny Smith's veins, the state decided instead to strap him to a gurney, put a mask over his face, and pump him full of nitrogen gas, a method that had never been used in a judicial execution before in the United States, or, for that matter, anywhere.

Speaker 62 They were attempting to make history.

Speaker 43 And in response, Kenny Smith's lawyers argued that the use of an untested method like nitrogen asphyxiation would violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

Speaker 63 They wanted a preliminary injunction.

Speaker 7 Tell me a little bit about nitrogen gas.

Speaker 69 It's not in its pure form, it's not used in medical situations.

Speaker 6 This is Joel Zivet, the Atlanta anesthesiologist who we've heard from many times in this series.

Speaker 69 You know, in the air we breathe,

Speaker 69 air is actually a mixture of about 79%

Speaker 69 or 80% nitrogen and 20, 21% oxygen. Why don't we breathe pure oxygen? If the atmosphere of the Earth was pure oxygen, it would be on fire and there would be no life.

Speaker 69 So to make it kind of work in the body, we have to water it down, so to speak, with nitrogen gas.

Speaker 7 We breathe in oxygen, which keeps us alive, mixed in with enough nitrogen to make it safe.

Speaker 59 Nitrogen is inert. It just passes in and out of the body.

Speaker 69 Like it doesn't kind of hurt to inhale it.

Speaker 69 But what it does do is that it doesn't,

Speaker 69 you know, it doesn't light the fire of life. It doesn't support the cellular combustion that is required with oxygen.

Speaker 69 So it's like putting the candle, you know, under the glass. and the candle eventually uses up all the oxygen and nothing remains.

Speaker 69 So the theory was that because nitrogen gas was not noxious,

Speaker 69 it could be given to someone as a kind of method of gas execution that would not be so troubling to them because they would breathe it and not know it and that they would then lose consciousness and die.

Speaker 11 All you needed was some pure industrial-grade nitrogen gas and a tight-fitting mask.

Speaker 11 That was the theory, and the great appeal of nitrogen to a state like Alabama, where the execution teams were not always up to the challenge of executing people the conventional way.

Speaker 15 But in practice, there are complications.

Speaker 12 Like, if some oxygen seeps into your mask while you're being fed nitrogen, then you could end up in a vegetative state, alive but brain dead.

Speaker 8 There's also the possibility, since pure nitrogen makes people nauseous, that the prisoner being executed could throw up in their mask and choke to death, which achieves the same end, but inducing someone to asphyxiate on their own vomit is not a Supreme Court-approved method of execution as yet.

Speaker 69 So, like, in lethal injection, you know, once the vein is cannulated and the drugs are flowing, it's hard to stop. Okay, you can't kind of block your own vein or do something.

Speaker 69 But in gas execution, you have to participate in your own demise by breathing. Okay, so the first thing that you're going to do is that you hold your breath, okay? Because you don't want to breathe.

Speaker 69 So now you're holding your breath.

Speaker 24 You're holding your breath.

Speaker 69 And as you hold your breath,

Speaker 69 your own carbon dioxide gas, which is something that we normally exhale and is sort of finely regulated, starts to rise.

Speaker 69 And it's the rising of carbon dioxide that is very uncomfortable when you hold your breath. It makes you want to take a breath.
So that starts to, at some point, you can't stand it, okay?

Speaker 69 And you've got to take a breath. So you breathe in at that point, you breathe in this nitrogen gas that, you know, has a very different kind of impact on

Speaker 69 what's happened to you, because by virtue of holding your breath, it dilates the blood vessels in the brain.

Speaker 69 Okay, so now you've got this flush of of nitrogen gas that's traveling, you know, at volume into your brain. That may be why you have a seizure.

Speaker 60 And

Speaker 69 it seems to create a cascade of other kinds of physiologic changes, none of which is instantaneous unconsciousness followed by death.

Speaker 11 The effectiveness of nitrogen gas as a euthanizing agent has actually been extensively studied in animals.

Speaker 18 A group of researchers in Zurich, for example, recently took 60 rats, implanted them with biomedical sensors, divided them into groups, each with a different lethal method.

Speaker 45 Carbon dioxide, a powerful anesthetic called isofluorane, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen.

Speaker 18 They euthanized all the animals, videotaped their final moments, necropsied the bodies, and collected cardiovascular, respiratory, neural, biochemical, histological, and behavioral data.

Speaker 57 Their conclusion?

Speaker 18 Carbon monoxide and nitrogen resulted in longer times to loss of consciousness, induced seizures before loss of consciousness, increased stress levels, and caused higher lung damage.

Speaker 11 Therefore, carbon monoxide and nitrogen are not humane alternatives and should not be used for euthanasia.

Speaker 62 They weren't talking about the applicability of their findings to human beings.

Speaker 58 They were simply addressing their colleagues who use lab animals for research purposes.

Speaker 15 They were telling them, even the smallest and most despised of animals deserve some degree of consideration.

Speaker 11 Please don't use nitrogen.

Speaker 44 A rat deserves a better way to die.

Speaker 58 So this was the point of the final lawsuit.

Speaker 58 Kenny Smith's lawyers wanted to know: had John Hamm and his colleagues thought about this new method of killing people with anything like the rigor of the lab rat community?

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Speaker 18 December 20th, 2023.

Speaker 56 It's a month before Kenny Smith's second execution date.

Speaker 15 John Q.

Speaker 12 Hamm took the stand in the morning.

Speaker 39 He began by laying out Alabama's proposed protocol.

Speaker 59 They would be using, he said, the same execution chamber as the lethal injection attempt, the same gurney.

Speaker 65 The execution team would have the same captain.

Speaker 7 Ten of the twelve members of the execution team would be the same.

Speaker 40 Each step of the protocol would be the same.

Speaker 18 The only difference would be no IV this time, just a mask hooked up to a canister of pure nitrogen.

Speaker 18 The cross-examination was handled by one of Kenny Smith's lawyers, Andrew Burns Johnson out of Birmingham.

Speaker 15 Can you tell the court what deliberation you had relating to what to do in the circumstance of vomiting in the mask when nitrogen is being applied?

Speaker 71 Answer.

Speaker 71 We just had conversations about, like I said, sitting around hypotheticals.

Speaker 66 So we sat around and we came up with those ideas or, excuse me, the side effects so what we would do in that situation.

Speaker 70 Question.

Speaker 11 Did you consider that vomiting in a mask could cause asphyxiation?

Speaker 71 Answer. Yes, sir.

Speaker 11 Did you consult with any medical personnel about how to lessen that risk?

Speaker 71 Answer. No, sir.

Speaker 7 Did you talk to any medical personnel about how to alleviate that risk?

Speaker 24 No, sir.

Speaker 65 Did you talk to any medical personnel about what to do in that situation as it's happening to prevent asphyxiation?

Speaker 37 I did not.

Speaker 6 I can only imagine what was going through the mind of Kenny Smith's lawyer in that moment.

Speaker 42 Is it bafflement?

Speaker 49 Disbelief?

Speaker 58 I mean, for goodness sake, a research team in Zurich went to enormous effort to figure out whether nitrogen was worthy of lab rats.

Speaker 68 Could the Alabama State Department of Corrections, an organization with a budget of over $700 million,

Speaker 11 really just be winging it?

Speaker 62 Wait, we're not finished.

Speaker 58 Okay, you certainly had medical personnel available to you to ask that question.

Speaker 71 Answer.

Speaker 58 I could have sought out medical advice, yes.

Speaker 24 Okay,

Speaker 57 did the state have medical personnel involved in this process of developing this protocol that you signed?

Speaker 24 Answer.

Speaker 7 The Department of Corrections did not have medical personnel involved.

Speaker 11 Were you ever involved in meetings with medical personnel where the issue of vomiting in the mask was discussed at all?

Speaker 62 Answer.

Speaker 24 No, sir.

Speaker 11 Have you had an opportunity to review the declarations of the experts in this case who talk about the effects of vomiting in the mask?

Speaker 71 Answer.

Speaker 24 I have not.

Speaker 63 This goes on and on, by the way.

Speaker 42 Other witnesses from the state of of Alabama get called.

Speaker 6 Has anyone thought about what would happen if outside air came into the mask?

Speaker 63 No.

Speaker 6 Where did you get that mask, by the way?

Speaker 18 Well, they don't really make masks for execution purposes, do they?

Speaker 21 So we're using an industrial mask, the kind that a construction worker might use.

Speaker 11 We did some internet research.

Speaker 7 Literally, the person who the state asked to figure out the mask question, who they brought to the hearing to support their case, admitted that he'd never used these kinds kinds of masks, had no expertise in the characteristics of these masks, and knew what he knew because he'd spent some time online.

Speaker 6 Kenny Smith's lawyer then brings up the testimony of a previous witness who had stressed the importance of the mask fitting perfectly so no outside air would leak in, and asks John Q.

Speaker 21 Hamm about it.

Speaker 67 So, in order to be properly placed, one would have to ensure that there's no outside air coming in.

Speaker 57 Answer: That was his opinion.

Speaker 65 Okay, assuming his opinion is correct, what's done in the execution chamber to make sure that no outside air gets under the mask?

Speaker 71 Answer.

Speaker 45 Well, that's a hypothetical on his opinion being correct.

Speaker 39 Even so, what is done to make sure no outside air comes in?

Speaker 24 Answer.

Speaker 11 I don't know specifically what the team captain does to make sure the air does not get in, but I'm sure they do practice quite regular.

Speaker 68 Do you agree with me there's nothing in the protocol that would let us know what's going to happen to make sure there's a proper fit?

Speaker 24 Answer.

Speaker 20 That is correct.

Speaker 11 Later in the day, Kate Porterfield was called to the stand.

Speaker 59 She had spent more than a year assessing Kenny Smith.

Speaker 58 She had submitted her report to the court.

Speaker 12 She probably knew more than anyone at that moment what he was feeling and how he was doing and how he might react to being re-executed by the same crew crew on the same gurney in the same execution chamber as the first go-round.

Speaker 62 But do you know what she was asked at the beginning of her cross-examination by the attorney for the Alabama Department of Corrections?

Speaker 63 Had she properly accounted for the possibility that Kenny might be malingering?

Speaker 59 What if all that PTSD stuff that he claimed was about being jabbed with needles for three and a half hours was just him faking it?

Speaker 18 A long technical discussion follows about how you can tell if someone's actually faking it.

Speaker 42 And from there, the questioning moved to the vomit issue.

Speaker 55 And astonishingly, oh gosh, the focus of that hearing,

Speaker 55 this is where the legal system sometimes is just you can't make it up, this stuff that they, that becomes the issue. Because he had to have a mask over his face to get the gas.

Speaker 55 for nitrogen hypoxia execution. And sorry, the details of this are gross.

Speaker 55 His lawyers argued he is, because of his post-traumatic stress, going to possibly throw up. And if he throws up in his mask, it's going to be, you know, he could get asphyxiated that way.
Now,

Speaker 55 of course, you are listening and thinking, this is so, like, talk about absurd, right?

Speaker 40 So

Speaker 55 I was asked to testify about his post-traumatic stress and his nausea, which was one of his symptoms.

Speaker 55 And, you know,

Speaker 55 I was asked to testify: would he throw up if they put a mask on his face and tried to kill him?

Speaker 55 Which,

Speaker 55 you know,

Speaker 55 it's

Speaker 24 just

Speaker 55 incredible to be asked that in a court of law. And I had to say, you know, I'm not a medical doctor, first of all, so I can't speak to the gastrointestinal system and what it does.

Speaker 55 I can tell you as a psychologist from this kind of severe post-traumatic stress and the fact that Mr. Smith's had really severe nausea and some vomiting, there is a high likelihood that could happen.

Speaker 55 Yes, because he's going to go into a serious state of distress.

Speaker 55 But it kind of boiled down to whether or not he would, you know, vomit

Speaker 55 as whether they could stop this. And they, you know, the judge said,

Speaker 55 the judge said, don't let him eat eight hours before.

Speaker 55 That's what they did, move the last meal earlier.

Speaker 62 And with that, Kenny's fate was set.

Speaker 7 In the months leading up to his execution date, Kenny Smith began to put his affairs in order.

Speaker 21 In his words, he loved up on everybody.

Speaker 12 He named his witnesses.

Speaker 70 He wanted his family there, his mom, his wife, his sons, his spiritual advisor, his lawyer, Robert Grass.

Speaker 39 So tell me about that evening.

Speaker 54 So

Speaker 54 I arrived. I was supposed to

Speaker 54 go to to the prison at five, so I got there at five.

Speaker 11 Everyone on the list arrived at Holman Prison on the afternoon of January 25th.

Speaker 15 The corrections department gathered them and put them in a van to drive to the execution chamber.

Speaker 54 At some point, it started to rain, and you could hear on the roof, you know, you could hear the rain falling on the roof.

Speaker 18 They emptied their pockets.

Speaker 49 No watches, no phones.

Speaker 58 At 6.52, one of the drivers of the van got a phone call.

Speaker 18 It was moving time.

Speaker 64 A police car with flashing lights led the way.

Speaker 58 Through a gate at the back of the prison, from there to a holding room.

Speaker 42 Another wait, maybe an hour.

Speaker 20 Lee Hedgepeth, the local reporter who did some interviews for us, was there.

Speaker 58 So was Kenny Smith's mom, Linda.

Speaker 72 He'd survived that first attempt. Did you think there was any chance that he would survive the the second time?

Speaker 73 You know,

Speaker 73 I really didn't.

Speaker 73 Did you?

Speaker 72 I don't know.

Speaker 72 Part of me thought we might all die because they didn't know what they were doing. It was the first time it had ever been done.
Yeah. You know, he's got a mask that leaks.

Speaker 24 I don't know.

Speaker 73 Somehow, I just knew that

Speaker 73 that was going to be it.

Speaker 73 And when he, well, he said when he seen them coming, he said, well, mom, they're coming to get me.

Speaker 24 And,

Speaker 73 you know, we said our goodbyes. And,

Speaker 73 you know, the last thing he said was, I love you, mom.

Speaker 74 I've got to go.

Speaker 72 So the last time you saw him was when I I was there in that room and they come and get him. Do you remember, is that what he said to you then too?

Speaker 72 Do you remember what you said to him?

Speaker 73 I told him I loved him too.

Speaker 73 He said, I know, mom.

Speaker 73 And then I just can't get that picture out of my head when they're walking him back and

Speaker 73 he

Speaker 73 looked back and he was just smiling.

Speaker 73 Yeah, that haunts me.

Speaker 66 At some point, everyone was led to the witness room.

Speaker 54 A curtain was drawn by the windows. There were four seats in the front, which we took.
There was a

Speaker 54 box of tissues to

Speaker 54 my right

Speaker 54 near the windowsill or on a windowsill.

Speaker 54 And then

Speaker 54 a little after that, they opened the curtain.

Speaker 54 We could see Kenny strapped to a gurney. He was strapped across his chest.
His arms were strapped to the side and he was wearing a mask. The warden entered the room.
He read the death warrant.

Speaker 54 He asked Kenny if he had,

Speaker 54 if you wanted to make a statement,

Speaker 54 which he did.

Speaker 54 So they put the microphone, they unscrewed a valve to the mask. They put the microphone near him, and he made his statement.
Warden then left the room.

Speaker 75 What did he say?

Speaker 54 He said something along the lines of that Alabama was taking a step backwards that evening.

Speaker 54 And he said, I love you all. I'm going with peace.
And

Speaker 54 I forget exactly what it was, but it was something along those lines.

Speaker 54 The warden left the room, and then

Speaker 54 they started the procedure, or

Speaker 54 at least

Speaker 54 that's what it seemed like, And that was

Speaker 54 pretty ugly to watch

Speaker 54 because

Speaker 54 Kenny, they had been saying all along that Kenny would be unconscious in

Speaker 54 seconds, less than a minute, and this would

Speaker 54 be a painless thing. I'm not a medical person.
I can't opine

Speaker 54 on what happened. The only one who can tell us if he experienced pain is not here to describe it.

Speaker 54 But what I observed anyhow did not look like what Alabama had advertised because there were

Speaker 54 violent seizure type movements.

Speaker 54 You know, it's kind of

Speaker 54 as best he could against the constraints. You could see his head come back and violently come forward and violently go back.
You could see his fists clenched and his arms

Speaker 54 straining against the restraints.

Speaker 54 And as I said, I didn't have my watch and I wasn't

Speaker 54 cognizant if there was a clock in the room, but I can tell you that that went on. You know, that was minutes, not seconds, that that appeared to be going on.
There was what appeared to be

Speaker 54 gasping for air after that for again again another period of

Speaker 54 minutes,

Speaker 54 not seconds.

Speaker 54 At some point,

Speaker 54 you could see him kind of fall back into

Speaker 54 the gurney and lay there.

Speaker 54 Then they escorted us out of the witness room, took us back, put us back in the van, and brought us back to the parking lot where we had gathered.

Speaker 54 And

Speaker 54 that was that evening.

Speaker 14 Can you describe your

Speaker 8 feelings when it was over?

Speaker 54 It's hard to

Speaker 54 describe. You know, that was about

Speaker 54 18 years of

Speaker 54 effort that ended up being unsuccessful. I felt

Speaker 54 awful about that. I felt awful for

Speaker 54 Kenny. I felt awful for Kenny's wife, his...

Speaker 54 children, his mother, his extended family. He had grandchildren by that point, nieces, nephews.
The point of the 18 years

Speaker 54 of representation was basically to avoid,

Speaker 54 to prevent that moment.

Speaker 24 Do you miss him?

Speaker 54 I do.

Speaker 54 I actually, you know, I think about him. His birthday was July 4th.

Speaker 54 So I was thinking about him then, and I

Speaker 54 think about him

Speaker 54 often.

Speaker 53 Can you tell me a little bit more about...

Speaker 24 Sorry.

Speaker 54 I'm sorry. You know, I wish I could.

Speaker 54 every time I tell this story, I wish I could tell it with a different

Speaker 54 ending

Speaker 54 and a different beginning for that matter.

Speaker 24 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 68 Over the years, there have been some radical technique changes that have led to better results at the Olympics.

Speaker 49 The spinning start to the shock put, for example, resulted in significantly longer throws.

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Speaker 18 Jump heights steadily increased as more jumpers started flopping.

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Speaker 53 Good night. The state of Alabama started carrying out the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith by nitrogen hypoxia at the William C.

Speaker 53 Holman Correction Facility at Smith was executed for the 1988 capital murder of Elizabeth Dorleen Sennett in Calvert County.

Speaker 18 After it was all over, John Q Ham, the commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections, held a press conference, as he always does.

Speaker 45 Podium, big banner right behind him with the words, professionalism, integrity, accountability.

Speaker 62 Charles and Elizabeth Sennett's two sons stand off to the side.

Speaker 74 Commissioner, Mr. Smith appeared to shake him right on the gurney for at least two minutes at the start of the execution.
Was that expected?

Speaker 53 It appeared that one, Smith was holding his breath as long as he could, and then there's also information out there

Speaker 53 He struggled against his restraints a little bit, but there's some involuntary movement and some agnormal breathing so that was all expected and is in the side effects that we've seen or researched on nitrogen epoxy.

Speaker 53 So nothing was out of the ordinary what we were expecting.

Speaker 7 Nothing out of the ordinary.

Speaker 61 Just what they were expecting.

Speaker 57 Then, more questions.

Speaker 74 He appeared conscious for the first several minutes. Do you agree with that?

Speaker 74 The Attorney General's Office and Court Filing said they thought that nitrogen would cause a lack of consciousness within seconds.

Speaker 53 I don't know. I couldn't really see his face from where I was sitting.
Y'all might have had a better view of that.

Speaker 74 Anything to implement the smoke method for feature inmates on Death Bill?

Speaker 53 That's not heard. This is the state law for the state of Alabama that nitrogen epoxy is one of the three methods of execution.
So if the inmates choose it, then that's the method we will use.

Speaker 42 Then came a press release from the Alabama Attorney General's Office.

Speaker 18 Alabama has achieved something historic.

Speaker 18 It went on, despite the international effort by activists to undermine and disparage our state's justice system and to deny justice to the victims of heinous murders, our proven method offers a blueprint for other states and a warning to those who would contemplate shedding innocent blood.

Speaker 2 This is an important night for Liz Sennett's family, for justice, and for the rule of law in our great nation.

Speaker 39 A man has an affair and in his madness sees no alternative but to kill his wife.

Speaker 58 He recruits two troubled young men who take the fall.

Speaker 68 Both of those men are redeemed while in prison.

Speaker 18 They discover their capacity to love and to be loved, but that is of no concern for the state of Alabama, which executes the first by setting his lungs on fire and executes the second twice, first in spirit and then in fact, letting him convulse on the gurney because no one bothered to check whether a method that is not even worthy of lab rats was a good idea for human beings.

Speaker 12 The cascade begins in obliviousness, then proceeds from indifference to cruelty, and ends in revision.

Speaker 68 When a senior elected official of an American state looks back over a 36-year-long cascade of moral failure and declares, without irony,

Speaker 62 Alabama has achieved something historic.

Speaker 56 Do you remember the last conversation you had with him?

Speaker 55 We still were very much talking about what his options were and legally. And I didn't know it was going to be my last conversation with him, you know?

Speaker 55 So once it got very close to the warrant,

Speaker 55 I had said, you know, I'm here. Anybody would like me to do anything to assist with this post-traumatic stress or anything, please contact me, you know.

Speaker 55 But he started to really have to focus on what he was about to do, you know, what was about to happen to him. So I wrote him a letter at the end and I sent it to him.

Speaker 55 I just wrote him a little paragraph and I just said

Speaker 55 that what it had meant to work with him. I gave it to him, I guess, the day before, and I just said, you know, your spirit is just, you know, irrepressible.

Speaker 55 And you're, I did say, I liked this because it was true of Kenny. I said, your ability to build relationships behind walls is nothing less than miraculous.
Because that's really what I felt about him.

Speaker 55 You know, he built relationships, real ones, with his loved ones.

Speaker 55 And that's not easy. It's not easy when we're not in prison.

Speaker 60 You know?

Speaker 56 Where were you when he was finally executed?

Speaker 55 Oh, I was home.

Speaker 55 So I, you know, I have this thing I do where I,

Speaker 55 you know, I talk to the lawyers always before and say where I'll be and stuff. And obviously if anyone needs me.

Speaker 55 And then I usually tell my kids when we're going to light a candle and we light a candle for the person. And usually I put something pretty with the candle and then take a picture of it.

Speaker 55 And I always send the picture of the candle to the lawyers and just say, you know, I'm remembering Kenny right now and whatever he's going through.

Speaker 60 And

Speaker 55 then I usually

Speaker 55 have a glass of wine and feel like shit.

Speaker 55 What are you thinking, may I ask?

Speaker 53 I'm sorry.

Speaker 55 It's a lot to think about.

Speaker 55 And,

Speaker 55 you know, the normal thing we do, we make meaning, right?

Speaker 55 Is we think about other losses.

Speaker 55 You think about what the person's family went through. You think what

Speaker 55 you would go through if that was happening. You know, so it's, this is what being a human is.
It's like when you put your mind in this place,

Speaker 1 it's a lot.

Speaker 24 It's a lot.

Speaker 45 Revisionist History is produced by Lucy Sullivan, Ben Dadaf Haffrey, and Nina Bird Lawrence.

Speaker 64 Additional reporting by Ben Dadaf Haffrey and Lee Hedgebeth.

Speaker 58 Our editor is Karen Shikurji.

Speaker 64 Fact-checking by Kate Furby.

Speaker 5 Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Production support from Luke Clemond.

Speaker 7 Engineering by Nina Bird Lawrence.

Speaker 43 Original music was composed, arranged, and recorded by Luis Guerra with additional composition and recording by Paul Brainerd.

Speaker 58 Drums by Jimmy Bott.

Speaker 43 Sound design and additional music by Jake Gorski.

Speaker 68 Cover art for the season was designed by Sean Carney.

Speaker 75 And special thanks to a whole host of people who helped us out.

Speaker 19 The good folks at Audible who came to our table reads, Talia Emlin, Randy Susskin at the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, who helped us out with research, Mike Cooley of the Drive-By Truckers, Anna Pushkin, Greta Cohn, Jacob Weisberg, Sarah Nix, Nicole Optenbosch, Jasmine Fostino, Christina Sullivan, Amy Gaines-Lequaid, Grace Ross, Eric Sandler, Morgan Ratner, Gira Posey, Jordan McMillan, Jake Flanagan, Owen Miller, Farah deGrunge, and Sarah Bouguer.

Speaker 46 I'm Malcolm Gladwell.

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