Alabama approves second nitrogen hypoxia execution

The Alabama Supreme Court has authorized the nitrogen hypoxia execution of Alan Eugene Miller, setting the stage for the state to have at least four executions this year.

Miller's execution would be the second carried out using nitrogen gas, the Alabama Attorney General’s office says. Miller, now 59, was convicted of killing three people during a pair of 1999 workplace shootings in suburban Birmingham. He was living in Autauga County at the time.

This is Miller’s second date with the executioner. He was set to die by lethal injection in September of 2022, but staff could not gain access to his veins for the IV lines before his death warrant expired.

Miller said that during the aborted 2022 lethal injection attempt, prison staff poked him with needles for over an hour as they tried to find a vein and at one point left him hanging vertically as he lay strapped to a gurney, court records show.

The attorney general’s office decides which condemned inmate is to be executed.

The supreme court then authorizes the execution and Gov. Kay Ivey sets the execution date.

"The State of Alabama is prepared to carry out the execution of Miller's sentence by means of nitrogen hypoxia," the attorney general's office wrote, adding that Miller has been on death row since 2000 and that it is time to carry out his sentence.

When the state originally tried to kill Miller in 2022, death warrants in Alabama were in effect for 24 hours. They now remain in effect for 30 hours.

Miller has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to bar the use of nitrogen hypoxia as the method of execution with the suit claiming it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, which is barred by the U.S. Constitution.

With nitrogen hypoxia, the condemned breathes pure nitrogen through a mask. The nitrogen displaces the oxygen in the lungs.

On Jan. 25, Kenneth Eugene Smith became the first person in the nation executed using the method. That execution was carried out in the death chamber at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. In the weeks before the execution, the attorney general’s office wrote in court documents that the inmate would lose consciousness in a matter of “seconds” and die in a matter of minutes.

Smith writhed and shook on the gurney for some four minutes before appearing to lose consciousness. His convulsions shook the gurney several times. He appeared to gasp for air and writhe for about two minutes more after he appeared to lose consciousness before he apparently stopped breathing.

The morning after Smith’s execution Attorney General Steve Marshall described the execution as “textbook” and said the state was ready to carry out more nitrogen hypoxia executions.

Source: montgomeryadvertiser.com, Marty Roney, May 7, 2024

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