FEATURED POST

Activists Call on President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty Before Leaving Office

Published
Image
A conversation with Death Penalty Action Co-founder and Executive Director Abe Bonowitz. Now that Joe Biden is a lame duck president, activists are holding him accountable to make good on his promise to end the federal death penalty during his remaining six months as president. Biden’s election campaign in 2020 had pledged to end the federal death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states that still allow executions to do the same. While he made history as the first president in the United States to openly oppose the death penalty, there has been no movement to actually end federal executions during his nearly four years in office.

Alabama lethal injection survivor Alan Eugene Miller seeks to stop ‘horrific’ nitrogen gas execution

Published
Alabama lethal injection survivor Alan Eugene Miller seeks to stop ‘horrific’ nitrogen gas execution

The Associated Press - Lawyers for an Alabama inmate on Friday asked a judge to block the nation’s second scheduled execution using nitrogen gas, arguing the first was a “horrific scene” that violates the ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Alan Eugene Miller, who survived a 2022 lethal injection attempt, is scheduled to be executed on Sept. 26 in Alabama through the new method. His attorneys argued the first nitrogen execution in January left Kenneth Smith shaking and convulsing on a gurney for several minutes as he was put to death.

“The execution was a disaster. Multiple eyewitnesses reported a horrific scene, where Mr. Smith writhed on the gurney and foamed at the mouth. Instead of examining potential deficiencies with their protocol, the State has shrouded it in secrecy,” his attorneys said.

Miller’s attorneys asked a federal judge for a preliminary injunction to stop the execution from going forward, or to at least require the state change the protocol. Alabama uses an industrial-type gas mask to force an inmate to breathe pure nitrogen, depriving him or her of the oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions.

Miller was convicted of capital murder for killing three men during a 1999 workplace shooting. Prosecutors said Miller, a delivery truck driver, killed coworkers Lee Holdbrooks and Scott Yancy at a business in suburban Birmingham and then drove off to shoot former supervisor Terry Jarvis at a business where Miller had previously worked.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall in January maintained Smith’s execution was “textbook” and said the state will seek to carry out more death sentences using nitrogen gas. Lethal injection, however, remains the state’s primary execution method.

Miller had previously argued nitrogen gas should be his execution method. Miller was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in 2022, but the state called off the execution after being unable to connect an IV line to the 351-pound inmate. The state agreed to never try again to execute Miller by lethal injection and that any execution would be carried out by nitrogen gas. At the time, the state had not developed a protocol for using nitrogen gas.

In the Friday court filing, attorneys for Miller argued the nitrogen protocol did not deliver the quick death the state promised the courts it would. They argued Smith instead writhed “in violent pain for several excruciating minutes.”

Source: The Associated Press, Staff, June 21, 2024

_____________________________________________________________________








"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde



Location: Alabama, USA
Related content:

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

Activists Call on President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty Before Leaving Office

Published
Image
A conversation with Death Penalty Action Co-founder and Executive Director Abe Bonowitz. Now that Joe Biden is a lame duck president, activists are holding him accountable to make good on his promise to end the federal death penalty during his remaining six months as president. Biden’s election campaign in 2020 had pledged to end the federal death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states that still allow executions to do the same. While he made history as the first president in the United States to openly oppose the death penalty, there has been no movement to actually end federal executions during his nearly four years in office.
Read more

Texas executes Travis Mullis

Published
Image
Texas man who waived his right to appeal death sentence is executed for killing infant son HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Texas man who had waived his right to appeal his death sentence was put to death Tuesday evening for killing his 3-month-old son more than 16 years ago, one of five executions scheduled within a week’s time in the U.S. Travis Mullis, 38, received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville and was pronounced dead at 7:01 p.m. CDT. He was condemned for stomping to death his son Alijah in January 2008.
Read more

Alabama has executed Alan Eugene Miller, the 2nd inmate known to die by nitrogen gas

Published
Image
Alan Eugene Miller was executed Thursday evening in Alabama, state officials said, making him the 2nd inmate known to die by nitrogen hypoxia, a controversial method critics say is tantamount to torture. Miller, 59, who was sentenced to death in 2000 for the 1999 killings of 3 men, was pronounced dead at 6:38 p.m. at a prison in Atmore, Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said at a news conference.
Read more

Second-ever nitrogen gas execution in US set to take place in Alabama

Published
Image
(NEW YORK) — Alabama is set to perform the second-ever nitrogen gas execution in the United States on Thursday. Alan Eugene Miller, 59, was sentenced to death for the 1999 murders of his then-coworkers Lee Holdbrooks and Christoper Scott Yancy, and his former supervisor Terry Lee Jarvis. Miller was to be executed in September 2022 via lethal injection, but it was called off after officials had trouble inserting an intravenous line to administer the fatal drugs and were concerned they would not be able to do so before the death warrant expired.
Read more

Oklahoma executes Emmanuel Littlejohn

Published
Image
Emmanuel Littlejohn executed in Oklahoma despite clemency recommendation from state board Things were looking up for Emmanuel Littlejohn in August as the state's parole board recommended him for clemency. But Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt was not swayed and allowed the execution to proceed. Emmanuel Littlejohn was executed by the state of Oklahoma Thursday morning in the shooting death of a beloved convenience store owner, despite a recommendation from a clemency board that his life should be spared.
Read more

Missouri executes Marcellus Williams

Published
Image
BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man convicted of breaking into a woman’s home and repeatedly stabbing her was executed Tuesday over the objections of the victim’s family and the prosecutor, who wanted the death sentence commuted to life in prison. Marcellus Williams, 55, was convicted in the 1998 killing of Lisha Gayle, who was stabbed during the burglary of her suburban St. Louis home.
Read more

Japan criticized as treating death-row inmates 'inhumanely'

Published
Image
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The inhumane treatment of inmates who have been sentenced to death has come under increased scrutiny in Japan, with legal experts criticizing authorities for giving little to no warning of an impending execution and denying those on death row basic human contact. Japan has no established regulations regarding how much warning an inmate on death row should be given before they are sent to the gallows, but anecdotal evidence shows they were informed the day before at least until the 1970s. Currently, inmates are notified just one or two hours before they are hanged.
Read more

Alabama opposes defense attorneys’ request to film nitrogen execution

Published
Image
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The state of Alabama asked a judge Friday to deny defense lawyers’ request to film the next execution by nitrogen gas in an attempt to help courts evaluate whether the new method is humane. The request to record the scheduled Sept. 26 execution of Alan Miller was filed by attorneys for another man facing the death penalty, Carey Dale Grayson. They are challenging the constitutionality of the method after Alabama carried out the nation’s first execution by nitrogen gas in January, when Kenneth Smith was put to death.
Read more

There are 5 executions set over a week's span in the US — that's the most in decades

Published
Image
On Tuesday, Texas is scheduled to execute a man with a long history of mental illness who has repeatedly sought to waive his right to appeal his death sentence. Death row inmates in five states are scheduled to be put to death in the span of one week, an unusually high number of executions that defies a yearslong trend of decline in both the use and support of the death penalty in the U.S.
Read more