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Stephen A. Cooper
Writer & Activist

How Much Do You Know About Alabama’s Execution Captain for Nitrogen-Gassings?

How Much Do You Know About Alabama’s Execution Captain for Nitrogen-Gassings? 

Recently, as was reported by NBC News in “Unredacted Alabama court documents shed new light on execution procedures,” everyone found out more than has been previously known—and more than Alabama officials ever intended to disclose—about Alabama’s top-secret execution procedures and personnel, particularly as it concerns nitrogen-gassing executions.

It’s too soon to know what all of the ramifications of this unintended document-dump will be, or all of the conclusions that can be drawn from it. However, one of the most startling revelations contained in the previously confidential documents is the identity of the execution captain for Alabama and the nation’s—and also the world’s—first nitrogen-gassing execution in January.

The unwittingly disclosed documents reveal correctional officer Brandon McKenzie was the “execution team captain” when Kenneth Smith was patently tortured to death in January by “nitrogen hypoxia,” an execution reported to have lasted for roughly 22 minutes. In “Alabama-Torture Outrage Muted and Unconscionably Insufficient,” published in The Montgomery Advertiser in February, I quoted Advertiser reporter Martin Rooney, one of several eyewitnesses to provide horrific observations about Smith’s execution; Rooney said: “Smith was shaking violently with his eyes rolling in the back of his head. For four minutes he was gasping for air. He appeared to be conscious. He was convulsing, he was writhing, the gurney was shaking noticeably.”

How much is publicly known about this man—this “execution team captain,” Brandon McKenzie—the man who was solely responsible for making sure that the gas mask used in the state’s first nitrogen-gassing execution was correctly fitted, and sealed around Kenneth Smith’s face?

A website called “govsalaries.com”—one that admittedly has a disclaimer saying “We cannot guarantee that information on this website [is] 100 % accurate or complete.”—reports that “according to public records,” in 2023, McKenzie “had an annual salary of $135,769.” Further too: “This salary was 124 percent higher than the average median salary in the Alabama Department of Corrections.” The same website page reports Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) as having 3,479 employees being paid an average annual wage of $60,624.

Can Governor Ivey and other Alabama lawmakers charged with overseeing ADOC confirm or deny the accuracy of these numbers—and McKenzie’s reputed salary? If the figures reported by govsalaries.com are accurate—and especially after January’s torture of Smith—can ADOC justify such generous pay in comparison to say, what teachers, social workers, and other caregivers in Alabama are paid—just for example?

And what about the “settlement” reached in the federal civil rights case, in August 2023, a case in which Alabama prisoner Lawrence Phillips sued McKenzie for $9,999,000 for using excessive force against him in an incident at Holman prison, in 2019? Alabamians can know nothing about the nature of that settlement because the agreement does not appear in the court records. But what does appear is certainly disturbing. This was a case where Phillips alleged that then-Lieutenant McKenzie, while “escorting” him to a different part of the institution, and with his hands cuffed behind his back, threw Phillips’ head through a glass window “and snatched it back out, throwing Phillips to the floor.”

Phillips specifically alleged McKenzie “smashed his face through a glass window and then power [drove] his head to a concrete floor.” He averred that the incident was witnessed by another prisoner and captured on videotape, on the hallway surveillance camera. Phillips asserted “he was transported to the University of South Alabama Medical Center in Mobile, Alabama where it was determined he had bleeding on his brain and received plastic surgery on his jaw.” Afterward, Phillips claimed “he suffers memory loss, nightmares, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress from the incident.”

In 2021, federal magistrate judge Katherine Nelson denied McKenzie’s motion for summary judgment on Phillips’ excessive force claims. Nelson wrote: “Given that the Plaintiff’s facts are ‘sufficiently supported by evidence of record,’ a reasonable jury could conclude based on such facts that Defendant used force against Plaintiff and that the force the force was applied maliciously and sadistically to cause harm, rather than in a good faith effort to restore or maintain order.”

Before Alabama gasses any other human beings to death, potentially with McKenzie still in charge of the extremely sensitive task of correctly affixing the gas mask, don’t ADOC and Alabama lawmakers have some explaining to do? Despite ADOC’s and Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s fantastical denials and claims of a “textbook execution,” don’t ADOC and Alabama lawmakers have more explaining to do about Kenneth Smith’s barbaric execution? Shouldn’t they have to explain about McKenzie’s career and salary with ADOC? Shouldn’t they be required to tell Alabamians why the death penalty is so important for Alabama given this disturbing and frankly despicable state of affairs? Just asking.

About the Author
Stephen Cooper is a former D.C. public defender who worked as an assistant federal public defender in Alabama between 2012 and 2015. He has contributed to numerous magazines and newspapers in the United States and overseas. He writes full-time and lives in Woodland Hills, California. Follow him on "X"/Twitter @SteveCooperEsq
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