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The US state of Alabama plans to execute a convicted murderer using an experimental measure involving suffocating the prisoner with nitrogen gas - basically starving him of oxygen until he dies.

The US Supreme Court has now declined to block the execution following an appeal by Kenneth Eugene Smith. He had argued that his sentence is unusual and cruel.

There have been shortages of chemicals used in lethal injections so states like Alabama have been looking at other methods of execution.

But many death penalty experts have described the use of nitrogen gas as inhumane. The United Nations says the untested method of nitrogen gas suffocation could amount to torture.

Corinna Lain is a constitutional expert, legal professor at the University of Richmond, and author of The Politics of Botched Executions thinks Alabama is breaking the law.

鈥淧art of the blame I lay at the feet of our constitutional court. The burden to show constitutional violation rests on the prisoner. When you have a constitutional system like that鈥� states can do whatever they want.鈥�

(Pic: Kenneth Eugene Smith; Credit: Reuters)

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