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Last week, Alabama had a “first in the nation” moment. But not in a way that many people wanted to celebrate. Alabama became one of the first places in the world to attempt an execution using nitrogen gas. Some called this execution a straight up “experiment.” The United Nations warned it might violate human rights treaties that the U.S. has signed on to.

The prisoner who was killed was named Kenneth Smith. Everyone who knew him just called him Kenny. And even though all this happened a few days back, it felt worthwhile to linger on, even now. So I called up someone who was there, someone who could tell me what exactly went down in the execution chamber.

The Rev. Jeff Hood is an anti–death penalty advocate. He’s also a spiritual adviser for death row inmates. Kenny Smith’s execution was the fifth Hood has been to in just a little over a year. He sits with inmates the whole day, ministering to them, but also just talking. And he stays beside them, even in the death chamber itself.

“It’s a very strange, strange moment,” Hood said. “When you get down to those last five minutes, there is nothing more horrible than sitting there and every precious second with someone they love is just ticking away. And there’s no way to catch it; it’s just flowing through their fingers. The tears and, just, wails—it’s horrible. It’s absolutely horrible.”

In the days since Kenny Smith was killed, there’s been an active public debate about whether his execution went well or went poorly. It definitely took a while. Smith visibly struggled as nitrogen gas got pumped into him. It was a half-hour before he was declared dead. Whether this execution is understood to have been humane or even just acceptable has real consequences. Other states are considering executing inmates with nitrogen gas. And dozens of death row prisoners in Alabama have now requested this execution method.

The Alabama attorney general said this was a “textbook execution,” but Hood disagrees. “He’s a liar. He’s either a liar or a lunatic. The people who are in power, and making these comments, are not the people who actually had to carry out the execution,” he said.

On a recent episode of What Next, we discussed what exactly happened inside Alabama’s execution chamber. Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Mary Harris: The Rev. Jeff Hood started out as a death penalty protester—one of those people outside a prison, asking the state to shut their death chambers down. It didn’t take him long to figure out that was not working.

Having gone to the seminary, he quickly realized he could play a different role: the role of spiritual adviser to the accused. Now, he’s got a calendar full of meetings with death row inmates, he’s got executions he’s attending. One of the things he’s really clear about, though, is that the people he’s ministering to, they’ve done bad things. Often, really bad things.

Jeff Hood: You start off really naïve, in this “everybody’s innocent” kind of way. One of the early guys that I interacted with was a serial killer of children. So, I was sitting there with him and we were talking about everything, and I asked him if there was anything that I could do for him. And he said, “Could you send me a picture of your children?”

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