The Alabama Murders - Part 5: Cruel and Unusual

Holman Correctional Facility. November 2022. The State of Alabama tries to execute Kenneth Smith. Get early, ad-free access to the full season of The Alabama Murders by subscribing to Pushkin+ on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/revisionist-history-the-alabama-murders/id1119389968 or Pushkin.fm http://pushkin.fm/. Pushkin+ subscribers can access ad-free episodes, full audiobooks, exclusive binges, and bonus content for all Pushkin shows. Subscribe on Apple: apple.co/pushkin http://apple.co/pushkin Subscribe on Pushkin: pushkin.com/plus http://pushkin.com/plus See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is Jacob Goldstein. When you're a business owner interested in expanding to new markets, there's a lot to consider and countless questions to answer before making the call. The most important one being, are you ready? That's where ChatGPT comes in. Give it a goal, add your files, and ask chat to help you map out different scenarios for the future of your business. So when growth is on the table, you've got an expansion plan ready to implement. Get started today at chatgpt.com.

• 0:28Malcolm Gladwell?

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• 1:09Malcolm Gladwell?

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• 1:54Malcolm Gladwell?

  Terms and more at applecard.com.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  Previously on Revisionist History.

• 2:12Speaker 03

  I think there was a pressure to have a method that looked more humane than electrocution and lethal gas.

• 2:18Speaker 04

  On that van, and I go back to the hotel where the other people had been in there praying with his family, and I had to go in and tell them, you know, John's gone, it was peaceful, he didn't appear to suffer.

• 2:32Speaker 05

  This is how lethal injection actually kills you. It kills you by burning your lungs up, and you're also paralyzed, so you can't complain that this is happening.

• 2:53Speaker 06

  Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for being here. Hope everybody had a wonderful holiday, if I haven't seen you since then. Call this press conference today because I believe the people of Alabama deserve an explanation on where things stand and where I stand with regard to capital punishment in our state.

• 3:11Malcolm Gladwell?

  It's early December 2022, Montgomery, Alabama. Steve Marshall, the state's attorney general, is holding a press conference, standing at the podium, flanked by the Alabama and American flags.

• 3:23Speaker 06

  What occurred on November 17th was a travesty, but not for the reasons that many death penalty opponents and death row sympathizers would have the public to believe.

• 3:39Malcolm Gladwell?

  My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to The Alabama Murders, our series on the Elizabeth Senet case. This is episode five, Cruel and Unusual. It's about the second of her assailants, Kenny Smith, and what was done to him in the name of justice. The travesty of November 17th.

• 4:08Malcolm Gladwell?

  Kenny Smith was 22 at the time of Elizabeth Senate's murder. He had a girlfriend and two young children. He was working in a factory. He was slight, skinny, dark hair, thick, moon-shaped eyebrows. He was drunk a lot and high, but always smiling.

• 4:25Speaker 07

  They would come over to my house a lot and Kenny would just be grinning because and Michael would be sitting in the backseat in his car seat and but Kenny would be high and you know, he would be drinking.

• 4:39Malcolm Gladwell?

  This is Linda Smith, Kenny's mom, talking with a local reporter named Lee Hedgesbeth. Lee has covered the Kenny Smith case and knows his family well.

• 4:49Speaker 08

  What kind of drunk was Kenny?

• 4:52Speaker 07

  He was a happy drunk.

• 4:54Speaker 08

  Yeah. It's hard to think of Kenny as anything.

• 4:57Speaker 07

  I know, yeah.

• 4:58Speaker 08

  He was lucky all the time.

• 4:59Speaker 07

  Yeah. I mean, what you're seeing is what you get with him.

• 5:06Malcolm Gladwell?

  On the evening after the attack on Elizabeth Senate, Smith's best friend came over to his house. They went out to get beer. Kenny's hand was swollen. He had it wrapped in a bandage. On the way to the store, Kenny kept saying, "I messed up, I messed up." He wouldn't say why. Then, back at home, he started crying. His mother lived close by. In the days that followed, before the police caught up to him, he went to see her.

• 5:32Speaker 07

  And Kenny, you know, like I said, he would come over during that time. I mean, I look back on the times that he would come over and he would be kind of distant, you know? And he would just, I mean, it's just like it was something he wanted to tell me, but you know, he never did.

• 5:58Speaker 08

  So when do you find out that he's implicated in some way?

• 6:02Speaker 07

  Um, well, I found out one afternoon when he calls me.

• 6:08Speaker 07

  I think he just got home from work and he called me and he said, "Mom, can you come pick up Michael?" And I said, "Well, I'm washing my hair right now." I said, "I can't right this minute." And he said, "Well, Mom, can you come?" He said, "The police are here." And I just thought it was, you know, for pot or drugs or something like that. And I said, "Well, you know, I'll be over there, you know, in just a minute." Of course, it didn't take me long to get to their house. And when I drove up over there in that driveway, I bet you there was 10, 10 cars out in front.

• 6:48Malcolm Gladwell?

  Kenny Smith met the same fate as his friend John Parker, who you heard about in the last episode. Smith was charged with murder, convicted, sentenced by the jury to life without parole by a vote of 11 to 1, and then his judge did the same thing John Parker's judge did, overrode the jury's decision and sentenced him to death. He got sent to home in prison and stayed there for decades, appealing his sentence, delaying the inevitable, until November 17, 2022, when the event that the Attorney General of the State of Alabama called "a travesty" happened.

• 7:26Speaker 06

  There's been a great deal of media coverage, both local and national, about what happened in Kenny Smith's execution chamber. Much of that coverage has seemingly been openly sympathetic to Smith and his cause, even with some going so far as to advocate for the abolishment of the death penalty. And on what basis exactly? Because a cold-blooded convicted killer complains about the prodding and poking of a small Ivy line. Really? Prodding and poking with a needle?

• 8:04Malcolm Gladwell?

  Prodding and poking with a needle. Let's start there.

• 8:11Malcolm Gladwell?

  The state of Alabama has a detailed set of instructions for how executions are to be carried out in their prisons. A protocol. The protocol was not supposed to be a public document, but Alabama was forced to disclose it during a death penalty court case. It's 41 pages of dry, precise language stipulating every step of the process. When a condemned prisoner is supposed to be moved to a special holding cell, when he gets his last meal, what he gets to have in his cell, the people who are allowed to attend the execution, where the victim's family goes, where the offenders' group goes, things like that. The execution team is made up of about a dozen people. It has a captain.

• 8:56Malcolm Gladwell?

  The team is supposed to do a walkthrough in the week leading up to the execution, batting practice, if you will, to make sure they have the killing procedure down pat. As you may remember from the last episode, the seed of the idea behind lethal injection came from Ronald Reagan, who said, "Why don't we just execute people the same way we put down horses?" To use the veterinarians' euphemism, "put them to sleep." Clean, quick, professional, something that appears painless, instead of all the messiness of the electric chair. That's very much the spirit of the Alabama protocol.

• 9:33Speaker 05

  What was so, I think, effective about lethal injection and sinister is the fact that when you observe an execution with lethal injection generally, it's a pretty bloodless event. Not much happens. It appears that a person kind of closes their eyes, maybe you could imagine that they fall asleep, and then they're dead.

• 9:58Malcolm Gladwell?

  Joel Zivit, the intensive care specialist from Emory University in Atlanta, who fell into death penalty work a few years ago.

• 10:05Speaker 05

  So this was a breakthrough in terms of the witness experience, because every other kind of execution method that had ever occurred before then, you know, was quite a lot more graphic. But lethal injection seemed to, you know, solve the problem of being outwardly peaceful. And, and that's why I think lethal injection took hold. And on top of that, of course, there was this kind of impersonation of a medical act. There was the use of terminology of medicine and even the use of physicians and other medical people, which gave this kind of extra impression, you know, that this was legitimate and endorsed kind of activity.

• 10:49Malcolm Gladwell?

  Which brings us to the portion of the protocol at issue on the evening of November 17th, 2022. It's in Section B, Part 1, Clause A. Quote, "The IV team will be escorted into the execution chamber to start the IV. The heart monitor leads will be applied to the condemned inmate. If the condemned inmate's veins make obtaining venous access difficult or problematic, qualified medical personnel may perform a central line procedure as set forth in Section 2 of Appendix B, A D O C, Lethal Injection Execution Procedure." A central line procedure involves inserting a long, thin, flexible tube into a large

• 11:33Malcolm Gladwell?

  vein, like the jugular vein in the neck, or the subclavian vein in the chest, or the femoral vein in the thigh. So you try for the arm, the normal way, and if you fail, you go for a big vein. That's the plan. Only, in real life, things aren't always so straightforward as outlined in Section B, Part 1, Clause A. In the case of Kenny Smith and in other cases, there have been these initial problems in finding a vein.

• 12:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, I want to talk about this with you, Malcolm.

• 12:02Malcolm Gladwell?

  Can you talk about this? Because I, as a, a non-medical person... I'm puzzled. I don't understand this.

• 12:10Speaker 05

  Sure, yeah.

• 12:10Malcolm Gladwell?

  So walk me through, why is that hard?

• 12:13Speaker 05

  Alabama was the poster child of failure for this in an odd kind of cluster of cases. And to answer your question directly, why is it hard? Well, it's hard because in order to put an intravenous into a vein, it requires a certain level of skill, and it also requires some cooperation. It hurts to stick someone with a needle. So in someone who is young and fit and well hydrated and relaxed, that the chance of getting a vein in a person like that is quite high.

• 12:53Speaker 05

  In someone who's dehydrated, terrified, had been sick, had been in prison for two decades, it becomes a lot harder. Plus, you're also giving it over to people who are not experts. An anesthesiologist in good standing is not going to spend their Wednesdays over at the state corrections, sticking IVs in people for execution. It's not something that we do. And to learn to do an intravenous is a technical skill. It can be learned.

• 13:29Speaker 05

  But I think also the people who are doing it themselves are nervous.

• 13:34Malcolm Gladwell?

  Alabama won't reveal exactly who is on the execution team, what their training is, how much experience they have. But it's safe to say this isn't a team full of doctors, since doctors have to take an oath to do no harm. And hooking someone up to an IV that will transport lethal drugs is definitely doing harm. That's Zivat's point. These are prison employees or outside contractors. It's not the anesthesiologist from the nearest teaching hospital.

• 14:02Speaker 05

  There are some ways of making it more likely than not to succeed. But what is taught either in nursing school or as an EMT or as a doctor cannot be lifted into the death chamber. Like, it's not the same place. These people are not patients. They're not collaborators to you.

• 14:23Malcolm Gladwell?

  In some states with the death penalty, putting in the IV is done in full view of the witnesses to the execution. But in Alabama, it's done before the witnesses are invited into the execution chamber, which means that any outsider who is there to see the execution, the families and friends and reporters, are forced to guess how the IV process is going. The executions are supposed to start at 6:00. The witnesses are all sequestered in a holding room away from the execution site. And if it gets to be 7:00 PM or 7:30 or 9:00 PM, and the witnesses haven't yet been picked up by the bus to go take them to the execution chamber, then everyone starts to wonder, is there a problem?

• 15:09Malcolm Gladwell?

  This is exactly what happened in the summer of 2022, while Kenny Smith was still appealing his sentence. A condemned inmate at Holman named Joe Nathan James was set to be executed. Everything with James ran late.

• 15:25Malcolm Gladwell?

  Afterwards, the state insisted that procedure had gone according to plan, but Zivit was suspicious. He asked to perform a second autopsy. And what he found was, in a word, gruesome. Consider yourself warned.

• 15:40Speaker 05

  I was able to get his body. And I worked with a pathologist in Alabama and went there. And with him, you know, we performed this second autopsy. And I saw in his body evidence of, you know, multiple attempts at intravenouses. And some of these things, you know, you could see bruising, which meant that they were, you know, kind of getting in and getting out of a vein, and there was some bleeding under the skin. And there was, these were both on, you know, on multiple spots on his arms, up and down both arms. And then there was also evidence of something called a cut down. And a cut down is where you take a knife to the skin and you open the

• 16:21Speaker 05

  skin to reveal, you know, a vein beneath that you couldn't otherwise see or feel. It's kind of an old style technique and it's been replaced by ultrasound. And the protocol at the time does not provide for the possibility of a cut down. And also the cut down along the edges of it had blood, which again meant that he had to have been alive and bleeding for this to have taken place. So somehow they got some IV in him, but it took them hours to do it. So picture, you know, Joe Nathan James lying there strapped down, you know, not cooperative as they poke

• 17:05Speaker 05

  and poke and poke him and they finally just take a knife to his forearm to open up his forearm to try to get a vein there. And that, so that was Joe.

• 17:21Malcolm Gladwell?

  Then came Alan Miller, two months later. Under Alabama law, once a defendant has been convicted of a capital crime, he or she is given a death warrant. A warrant is a writ issued by the court, which lays out the facts of the conviction, the specific offense, the judgment of the court, and the time and place of execution, which in Alabama is a purpose-built facility on the campus of Holman Prison in Atmore. At the time, once a date had been set, the execution had to take place by midnight. So they start at 6:00 PM and give themselves six hours. With Alan Miller, they ran out of time, gave up.

• 18:01Malcolm Gladwell?

  The state had to come back and kill him on another day. Then came Kenny Smith.

• 18:24Speaker 00

  This is Jacob Goldstein. With ChatGPT, you can do more than get answers. You can get things done. When you're running a business and looking to expand, you need a clear view of the landscape before making any decisions. ChatGPT can help you prepare. Connect your Google Drive, point to relevant files and reports, and ask it to research competitors, industry forecasts, and market signals. It can turn the findings into a strategic deck in your team's template that you can review before presenting to your leadership team. Growing a business is ambitious and ChatGPT can help you do it with confidence. Get started today at chatgpt.com.

• 19:02Malcolm Gladwell?

  A business gift is never just a gift. It's a thank you, a milestone, a moment of appreciation. It's a message about how much someone matters and what your brand stands for. At 4imprint, you'll find thousands of customizable options like premium apparel, branded drinkware, tech totes, and more, each chosen not just for function, but for meaning. You can tailor every detail, your logo, your message, your presentation, so your gift feels personal and on-brand. And with expert support, dependable service, and thousands without a setup fee, creating something thoughtful doesn't mean making it complicated.

• 19:43Malcolm Gladwell?

  Every order is backed by 4imprint's 360-degree guarantee, so you can be 4imprint certain it'll arrive exactly as expected, on time, and with the care your brand deserves. Because when the moment matters, the right gift speaks volumes and the right partner makes it easy. Explore gifting with purpose and certainty at 4imprint.com. 4imprint, for certain. These days, there are more people than ever telling you how to manage your health. And we've all gone down an internet rabbit hole, exploring the latest health trends. Your social media feed is packed with wellness advice, telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep.

• 20:28Malcolm Gladwell?

  But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy-nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to health influencers, real people, and most importantly, doctors, to separate fact from fiction. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Listen to Health vs. Hype on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 21:10Malcolm Gladwell?

  Tell me your impressions of Kenny. What was he like?

• 21:13Speaker 09

  Kenny, I obviously didn't know him when he was a 22-year-old person at the time of the events for which he was convicted, but he truly was an example. And I know this is going to sound trite and a cliche, but he really got religion figuratively and literally. You know, in prison, he was a force for good.

• 21:50Malcolm Gladwell?

  This is Robert Grass, one of Kenny Smith's lawyers, the one who had been with him the longest. He's a litigator for a prestigious corporate law firm in New York City. He represents pharmaceutical companies, but he does pro bono death penalty work on the side. He started representing Kenny Smith in 2005. How many, how many times over the course of 20 years did you go to Alabama?

• 22:13Speaker 09

  I don't have an exact number, but many.

• 22:19Malcolm Gladwell?

  Holman Prison, where Smith was held, is in the southern part of the state. Grass was in New York, so that's New York to Atlanta, Atlanta to Mobile, rent a car in Mobile, drive an hour to Atmore. He made that journey for close to two decades.

• 22:35Speaker 09

  I really felt as if we developed a friendship. You know, I really would have liked to have had the opportunity to interact with him under different circumstances.

• 22:50Malcolm Gladwell?

  Grass is older, lean, dark suit, gray hair, Ivy League degree, cum laude law school graduate. He probably bills out at some astronomical number. Whenever I read about some complicated legal negotiation that goes on into the wee hours of the morning, I imagine it's because someone like Robert Grass is involved, as measured and dispassionate and implacable at 3:00 a.m. as they were at 3:00 in the afternoon. You have to listen very closely when he talks. He doesn't broadcast his feelings. He sends out Morse code signals. Talk a little bit more about your friendship. It's, it's an unlikely friendship.

• 23:30Speaker 09

  Yeah, I, you know, we obviously grew up in different circumstances.

• 23:40Malcolm Gladwell?

  Different circumstances. Morse code.

• 23:43Speaker 09

  I've had other experiences with some folks on death row where I, you know, didn't feel the same bond. But Kenny, as I said, by the time I knew him,

• 23:59Speaker 09

  was just a decent man, incredibly gracious, and really seemed to have the best he could, given the environment he was in, to have been leading a productive life in that environment.

• 24:23Malcolm Gladwell?

  In the fall of 2022, Smith and his legal team suffered a serious setback. Smith was finally given a death warrant, and the warrant set the date of the execution, November 17, 2022. But those two botched execution cases, Alan Miller and Joe Nathan James, gave Grass one more chance. The Supreme Court has long supported the idea that states can execute prisoners if they wish, but they have insisted that executions have to be done the right way. And what happened to Joe Nathan James and Alan Miller didn't seem like it fit any definition of the right way. So Smith's lawyers sued. The way Alabama is practicing

• 25:05Malcolm Gladwell?

  lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. The case was dismissed. Grass appealed to the 11th Circuit in Atlanta. Arguments were heard on November 16, the day before Smith's death warrant. Grass went directly from the hearing to the prison.

• 25:23Speaker 09

  Then I went to Atmore, which is where Holman is. Visited with Kenny that morning. We were still waiting for the 11th Circuit's decision. And that day became a real roller coaster of emotions.

• 25:39Malcolm Gladwell?

  Grass was in a hotel room, a mile or two from the prison. At 8:00 PM, Grass heard that the prison guards at Holman had taken Kenny out of his cell and were preparing him for execution. But that wasn't right. His appeal was still up in the air. Then Grass got another call. The 11th Circuit had ruled in Kenny's favor. The execution was off. At which point, the state of Alabama appealed to the US Supreme Court. It was now after 8:00 PM.

• 26:08Speaker 09

  And in the meantime, I'm kind of watching the clock tick because the death warrant expired at midnight. So I'm hoping to reach that point without this going forward. But about a quarter after 10:00 or so, got a call from the emergency clerk at the United States Supreme Court, sometimes referred to as the death clerk, because a lot of the emergencies involve capital cases, but who said, "There's no easy way to say this." And so I knew from that preferatory remark what was coming.

• 26:54Malcolm Gladwell?

  The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Alabama. One of the reporters, who was at Holman Prison covering the story, emailed Grass to say they were moving the witnesses to the death chamber. Grass sat in his hotel room, waiting to hear what happened. Nothing. Silence. The next morning, he learned why.

• 27:19Speaker 09

  So he was taken out of his cell,

• 27:25Speaker 09

  thinking that his execution was imminent, strapped to a gurney, and nothing is happening and he's asking, you know, the corrections officers who are with him, what's going on? And they, you know, tell him they don't know.

• 27:45Speaker 09

  And then when they finally got going, you know, they've got three members of an IV team, none of whom are identified to him. There were other people in the execution chamber with them that were not identified to him. They're, you know, jabbing him with a needle, trying to find the vein, which they weren't able to do. Then they tried something called a central line procedure to kind of stick a needle under his collarbone and reach one of his central veins. But again, they didn't tell him what they were doing, what was going on.

• 28:27Speaker 09

  They just kind of put a surgical gown over him. You know, one of the IV team members came back into the room in surgical garb. And, you know, Kenny is asking these people, what's, you know, what they're doing? No one is telling them.

• 28:45Malcolm Gladwell?

  I'm going to read from a report on that evening, commissioned by Grass and his team. It includes a very detailed description of what Kenny said happened to him in the execution chamber.

• 28:57Malcolm Gladwell?

  "He recalled seeing a clear plastic sheet over his chest with an open center. He saw that the man had a syringe in his hand, and he unbuttoned Mr. Smith's shirt and injected a yellow liquid into his chest. The man said, 'You will feel something cool.' And the man slid a long needle into his chest. He inserted the needle, and as Kenny perceived it, moved the needle around while it was inserted in his chest." Mr. Smith noted that he “lost all composure” at this point, describing, “Everything became surreal, everything went out the window.” Mr. Smith became terrified that he was being injected with a substance that would render him unable to communicate, something that he knew would violate an existing court

• 29:42Malcolm Gladwell?

  order. He was again panicked that he would not be able to say his final words to his family and the victim’s family, given what he heard had happened in a previous execution. The man who had been injecting him in the chest and the IV team all stepped back. Mr. Smith tried to gather himself and then said that they stepped back up and the man from behind his shoulder had a large gauge needle with a large cylinder. Mr. Smith said he “freaked out,” demanding that someone call his lawyer. Next, Deputy Warden Woods put his hands on Mr. Smith on both sides of his head and said, “This is for your own good,” pulling his head to the side.

• 30:26Malcolm Gladwell?

  Mr. Smith then recalled searing pain as he was injected under his collarbone. He said, “It took my breath away,” and he recalled that he was gasping and trying to get away by bucking up off the table. Mr. Smith recounted that he believed the man tried approximately five times to get this large needle into a vein under his collarbone.

• 30:49Speaker 09

  By the time this was done, that after three and a half or four hours being strapped to a gurney, you know, he was unable to stand, walk, unbutton his shirt, you know, change his clothes, do any of that without assistance.

• 31:13Malcolm Gladwell?

  It was now almost midnight. Kenny couldn’t stand. He asked for a wheelchair. They refused. He sat outside the chamber until the guards picked him up by the arms and carried him to the infirmary.

• 31:30Malcolm Gladwell?

  I can't help but think about the execution team in this moment, assuming they'd be able to carry out the most overwhelming of tasks on the pretense that it's a clean, professional, humane exercise, only to suddenly realize they can't do it. They're over their heads and they can't hide. They're stuck in the execution chamber until midnight. For reasons I can't fully explain, every time I think of the night of November 17th, I think of the lines from an old Graham Parker song. "The doctor gets nervous completing the service. He's all rubber gloves and no head. He fumbles the light switch. It's just another minor hitch. Wishes to God he was dead."

• 32:15Malcolm Gladwell?

  After a night like that, how could you not wish to God you were dead?

• 32:33Speaker 00

  This is Jacob Goldstein. With ChatGPT, you can do more than get answers. You can get things done. When you're running a business and looking to expand, you need a clear view of the landscape before making any decisions. ChatGPT can help you prepare. Connect your Google Drive, point to relevant files and reports, and ask it to research competitors, industry forecasts, and market signals. It can turn the findings into a strategic deck in your team's template that you can review before presenting to your leadership team. Growing a business is ambitious, and ChatGPT can help you do it with confidence. Get started today at chatgpt.com.

• 33:10Malcolm Gladwell?

  A business gift is never just a gift. It's a thank you, a milestone, a moment of appreciation. It's a message about how much someone matters and what your brand stands for. At 4imprint, you'll find thousands of customizable options like premium apparel, branded drinkware, tech, totes, and more, each chosen not just for function, but for meaning. You can tailor every detail, your logo, your message, your presentation, so your gift feels personal and on-brand. And with expert support, dependable service, and thousands without a setup fee, creating something thoughtful doesn't mean making it complicated.

• 33:52Malcolm Gladwell?

  Every order is backed by 4imprint's 360-degree guarantee, so you can be 4imprint certain it'll arrive exactly as expected, on time, and with the care your brand deserves. Because when the moment matters, the right gift speaks volumes, and the right partner makes it easy. Explore gifting with purpose and certainty at 4imprint.com. 4imprint, for certain. These days, there are more people than ever telling you how to manage your health. And we've all gone down an internet rabbit hole exploring the latest health trends. Your social media feed is packed with wellness advice telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep.

• 34:36Malcolm Gladwell?

  But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy-nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to health influencers, real people, and most importantly, doctors, to separate fact from fiction. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Listen to Health vs. Hype on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 35:19Malcolm Gladwell?

  Kenny Smith's failed execution was on a Thursday. The following Monday, the governor of Alabama, Kay Ivey, paused all pending executions in the state and ordered a top-to-bottom review of the state's capital punishment protocol. And then, two and a half weeks after that, came Steve Marshall's press conference.

• 35:40Speaker 06

  Good afternoon, everybody. Called this press conference today because--

• 35:43Malcolm Gladwell?

  Attorney General's Office, Montgomery, Alabama. Flags on both sides of the podium. Alabama's highest-ranking legal officer seeks to set the record straight. And what was on his mind? That six-hour window that home and prison had given itself to get someone ready to be executed. Why were they starting so late in the day? He was letting murderers and their lawyers game the system.

• 36:07Speaker 06

  So if you're a defense lawyer representing an inmate, you simply know that you have to push the clock back as far as possible. I think we saw that occur with the last two executions.

• 36:16Malcolm Gladwell?

  Not to mention the prisoners themselves. They weren't helping matters.

• 36:20Speaker 06

  But let's also acknowledge that inmates themselves have responsibility here, not just in the delay that's occurred, but I think you've seen in pleadings that we have where inmates are resisting the efforts to put that Ivy line in, which obviously makes it more difficult.

• 36:36Malcolm Gladwell?

  Can you believe it? The condemned prisoners are not cooperating with their executioners. A reporter raises his hand.

• 36:46Malcolm Gladwell?

  Is there anything the state legislature could do, like maybe adding another method of execution or increasing that window to 48 or 72 hours? "Yes, yes," Marshall says. "That is the issue here. We just don't have long enough."

• 37:01Speaker 06

  Although we have a 24-hour period right now, we really, in actuality, have a six-hour window based upon policies of Department of Corrections having in place long before the current commissioner, long before Governor Ivey or myself. And I'm sure that's one of the things that they will look at as part of their review.

• 37:17Malcolm Gladwell?

  "I'm sure that's one of the things they will look at as part of their review." And sure enough, it was. The governor's top-to-bottom review turned out to be a new rule that said the guards at home in prison would have until the following morning to complete their service. Six more hours to poke and prod and take a knife and peel back flesh and dig around the collarbone and manage the rising sense of shame and self-loathing and revulsion that comes from being asked to do a job without really knowing how to do a job.

• 37:50Speaker 06

  There's been a great deal of media coverage, both local and national, about what happened in Kenny Smith's execution chamber. Much of that coverage has seemingly been openly sympathetic to Smith and his cause, even with some going so far as to advocate for the abolishment of the death penalty. And on what basis exactly? Because a cold-blooded convicted killer complains about the prodding and poking of a small abbey line. Really? Poding and poking with a needle?

• 38:32Malcolm Gladwell?

  As the moral failure cascade gains momentum, indifference turns to cruelty. And through all of this, Kenny Smith was back in his cell, still alive. What do you do after the state has tried to kill you and failed? If the state botches the attempt the first time around, does that disqualify them from trying again? Robert Grass and the rest of Kenny Smith's legal team realized they needed someone to do an assessment of Kenny's condition before they could do anything else. They needed someone who knew what it might be like to be strapped to a gurney for three and a half hours, while a group of people in surgical garb stabbed

• 39:15Malcolm Gladwell?

  them with needles. So they called Kate Porterfield.

• 39:31Malcolm Gladwell?

  Coming up on Revisionist History.

• 39:34Speaker 10

  One of the people on the team who he didn't know says to him, "It's over, and I'll be praying for you." So these kinds of moments for Kenny were just unmanageable afterwards. They were unmanageable moments with other humans.

• 39:51Speaker 07

  I guess it started after Kenny was born. What I think is he was doing stuff and he was thinking I was, you know?

• 40:02Speaker 07

  Right. And he was jealous. Yeah. And but I wasn't, you know? I had a kid to raise.

• 40:08Speaker 10

  He really kind of got me. He made me really pause and think a lot, Kenny Smith, because watching someone only start from a place of love after something so horrible was, I'd never seen that before.

• 40:27Malcolm Gladwell?

  Revisionist History is produced by Lucy Sullivan, Ben Nadaf Hafray, and Nina Bird Lawrence. Additional reporting by Ben Nadaf Hafray and Lee Hedgesbeth. Our editor is Karen Shakurji. Fact checking by Kate Furby. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Engineering by Nina Bird Lawrence. Production support from Luke Lomond. Original scoring by Luis Guerra with Paul Brainard and Jimmy Bott. Sound design and additional music by Jake Korski. I'm Malcolm Gladwell.

• 41:12Malcolm Gladwell?

  You can get this entire season now ad-free by subscribing to Revisionist History on Pushkin Plus. Sign up on the show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm/plus. Pushkin Plus subscribers can access ad-free episodes, full audiobooks, exclusive binges, and bonus content for all Pushkin shows. A business gift should do more than check a box. It should reflect your brand and show someone they're appreciated, recognized, and truly seen. That's why Teams trust 4imprint. With thousands of high-quality customizable products like premium apparel, drinkware,

• 41:55Malcolm Gladwell?

  tech, and more, it's easy to create a gift that feels meaningful and on-brand. And with 4imprint's expert support and their 360-degree guarantee, you can be 4imprint certain your order will arrive exactly as intended. Explore gifting with confidence at fourimprint.com. Four imprint, for certain. For I don't know how long, maybe 12, 13 years, I've worn a Whoop band on my wrist. I started doing it because I met the founder of Whoop at a conference. He heard that I was a runner and he said, oh, you'll love this. It's perfect for athletes. And he was right. I've worn one ever since.

• 42:37Malcolm Gladwell?

  Every time I work out, I see how hard I worked, how long I need to recover. I wake up in the morning and I get a complete picture of how my sleep went, which helps me understand the kinds of things that lead to a bad night and the kinds of things that lead to a good night. It's sleek, long-lasting battery, and now with AI looking at all my numbers and coaching me. Whoop is a winner. New members can try Whoop with a 30-day free trial before committing to a membership. That's whoop.com for your free month of Whoop.

• 43:09Speaker 11

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