I've never understood the whole swirl about "humane" executions. For a large fraction of the human population, any execution is not "humane," but for the rest, there is a very real difference between torturing a person and killing him. So much money and litigation and energy today is wrapped up in the method of execution and the painlessness of it, which seems absurd.
It's completely within even a child's ability to put someone to sleep. After the convicted is asleep, a bullet to the head, or helium, or nitrogen, or anything else is painless.
I respect those who oppose execution, but this man was a murderer for hire, and he lived, in the words of his victim's son, for twice as long AFTER he murdered her than her own son lived with her when she was alive. That's not justice. His whole "love" message at his death was an unfair propaganda campaign that he was allowed to wage when his victim was killed with no voice to speak her unjust death.
Mr. Smith asked for nitrogen gas as his form of execution, yet one more ploy in a long, long series of abuses of the system, knowing it would delay for years the final act. Well, he got what he requested.
The attendant pastor signed a waiver to be allowed to be immediately beside him in death, yet another stunt, as the nitrogen posed no more risk to him than anaesthesia does to the operating staffs of hospitals and clinics the world over. He spoke of nitrogen as if it were mustard gas rather than present as 78% of the air we inhale every second we are alive. The pastor would have had to be strapped to the mask for it to be his only gas. Just silly.
The press goes to painful lengths not to glorify mass shooters, often not giving their names or faces much platform, but the press also martyrs murderers far beyond repeating their crimes.
Mr. Smith should have died at 28, and with no acclaim.