- Alabama has authorized its second-ever execution via nitrogen hypoxia
- Murderer Alan Eugene Miller is scheduled for his second execution
- This despite the controversy over the first nitrogen execution in January
Alabama has authorized its second-ever execution via nitrogen hypoxia, months after the same method sparked controversy in the state.
The state Supreme Court made the move Thursday, granting a request from the attorney general to execute killer Alan Eugene Miller.
Miller was convicted of killing three men in a workplace shooting in 1999, and previously survived an execution attempt in 2022 due to ongoing problems with lethal injections.
His execution date has not been set. He will be executed via nitrogen gas, despite the January execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith casting doubt on its effectiveness as it took him more than 20 minutes to suffocate.
Alan Eugene Miller, who was sentenced to death for killing three men in 1999, becomes the second person ever executed for nitrogen hypoxia.
Miller (pictured after his arrest in August 1999) previously survived an execution in 2022 due to flaws in the lethal injection system
When Miller survived his first execution in 2022, he was pricked with needles for more than an hour in a failed attempt to find a vein to inject him with a deadly cocktail.
At one point he was left hanging vertically from a stretcher to improve blood flow, and his ordeal was cited by his lawyers for their failure to delay his second execution.
The use of nitrogen gas as a new method – in which a gas mask is strapped to a prisoner’s face before suffocating him – is also being challenged by Miller in an ongoing lawsuit.
He cited Kenneth Eugene Smith’s experience in arguing that it violates a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Witnesses to Smith’s execution said he struggled against his restraints and convulsed for more than twenty minutes, fearing that the gas mask had not been placed on his face, causing slow asphyxiation.
Kenneth Eugene Smith was sentenced to death in 1996 after admitting to killing a preacher’s wife for hire in 1988. In January, he became the first person in American history to be executed with nitrogen gas.
Alabama officials have insisted that Smith’s first-ever nitrogen execution was a success, with Attorney General Steve Marshall insisting the method is “textbook.”
Marshall says Alabama will continue to seek more executions via nitrogen hypoxia, adding, “The state of Alabama is prepared to carry out Miller’s sentence through nitrogen hypoxia.”
In his February motion calling for Miller’s execution, he said it was too long to execute the killer since he has been on death row since 2000.
Miller’s execution comes 25 years after he fatally shot three men — Lee Holdbrooks, Christopher Scott Yancy and Terry Jarvis — in a workplace shooting.
He reportedly suffered from a ‘delusion’ and believed the men were spreading false rumors about him, but never claimed he was not the perpetrator.
In his botched execution in 2022, Miller was forced to endure more than an hour of injection attempts, with medics using a cellphone flashlight to help search for a vein.
Problems with lethal injections have plagued death rows across the country for years, largely due to pharmacies’ reluctance to produce lethal injection drugs.
This has led some states, such as Texas, to merely extend the drugs’ expiration dates, leading to an ongoing lawsuit against the inmates they are used against amid claims that the extended drugs are painful.