Alabama schedules second execution by nitrogen gas
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama has scheduled a second execution with nitrogen gas, months after the state became the first to put someone to death with the previously untested method.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey set a September 26 execution date for Alan Eugene Miller, who was convicted of killing three men in a workplace shooting in 1999. The execution will be carried out with nitrogen gas, the office of the governor. Miller survived a lethal injection attempt in 2022.
The governor’s action comes a week after the Alabama Supreme Court approved the execution.
In January, Alabama used nitrogen gas to execute Kenneth Smith. Smith shook and convulsed with seizure-like movements for several minutes on a stretcher when he was put to death on January 25.
A nitrogen hypoxia execution causes death by forcing the prisoner to breathe pure nitrogen, depriving him or her of the oxygen necessary to maintain bodily functions. Alabama and some other states have been looking for new ways to execute prisoners as the drugs used in lethal injections, the most common method of execution in the United States, become increasingly difficult to find.
Miller has a pending federal lawsuit challenging the method of execution as a violation of the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, citing witness accounts of Smith’s death.
“Rather than address these failures, the State of Alabama has attempted to maintain secrecy and avoid public scrutiny, in part by misrepresenting what happened in this botched execution,” the attorneys wrote in the court case. His lawyers are expected to ask a federal judge to block the execution.
Attorney General Steve Marshall insisted Smith’s execution was “textbook” and said the state will seek to carry out more death sentences using nitrogen gas.
State attorneys added that Miller has been on death row since 2000 and it is time to carry out his sentence.
Miller, a truck driver, was convicted of killing Terry Jarvis, Lee Holdbrooks and Scott Yancy in workplace shootings.