Former Alabama governor opposes nitrogen execution

(NewsNation) — In anticipation of the nation’s first execution by nitrogen gas, a former Alabama governor said that if it was in his power, he would go back and commute the sentences of everyone on death row during his term.

“If I had known then what I know now about the breadth of prosecutorial misconduct, I would have commuted the sentences of everyone on death row to life in prison without parole,” Democratic former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman said Thursday on “NewsNation Now.”

He called out one case in particular – that of 49-year-old Freddie Lee Wright, who was executed by electric chair in 2000.

Wright, a Black man, was sentenced to death for murder in the 1977 deaths of two white victims, Warran and Lois Green, according to Amnesty International.

Local Alabama NPR News outlet WBHM reported that prosecutors suppressed evidence and Wright’s attorney was later disbarred.

“I am absolutely convinced that one Freddy Lee Wright was wrongfully charged, prosecuted and wrongfully executed during my term as governor,” Siegelman told NewsNation. “If I had the information that was available over a cumulative 24 years, I certainly would have intervened but that information was not available.”

Siegelman’s comments come the same day Alabama is poised to carry out the nation’s first execution of a prisoner using a method known as nitrogen hypoxia.

The method involves being fitted with a respirator-style face mask and inhaling pure nitrogen. Some rallied to halt the execution, citing concerns that it would be inhumane, but the state received permission to move forward with it.

The death-row inmate in question, Kenneth E. Smith, is one of two men convicted in the murder-for-hire killing of Elizabeth “Liz” Sennett in 1988. Sennett was the wife of a deeply indebted preacher who wanted to collect insurance, the Associated Press reported.

Eleven of 12 jurors at the time recommended a sentence of life without parole, but a judge overrode that call and sentenced Smith to death. He’s already has survived one attempted execution by what was supposed to be lethal injection.

Alabama abolished a judge’s ability to override such recommendations in 2017. Siegelman, who spent six years in prison on a bribery conviction, says the change should apply retroactively to cases like Smith’s.

“If I had known then what I know now about the breadth of prosecutorial misconduct, I would have commuted the sentences of everyone on death row to life in prison without parole,” Siegelman said.