By The newspaper
May 2, 2024, 8:42 PM EDT
Alabama lawmakers authorized the execution of a second inmate with nitrogen gas. This happens more than three months after they became the first state in the country to execute a person with this method, which was described as “agonizing and painful” by the United Nations.
The Alabama Supreme Court on Thursday, May 2, accepted state Attorney General Steve Marshall’s request to set an execution date for Alan Eugene Miller, 59, who survived a lethal injection attempt, The Associated Press reported. .
The procedure was canceled
The state attempted to execute him on September 22, 2022, but the procedure was canceled after officials were unable to connect an IV to the prisoner who weighed about 350 pounds (159 kilograms).
Eugene Miller has been on death row since 2000, after being convicted of fatally shooting Lee Holdbrooks, Scott Yancy and Terry Jarvis in suburban Birmingham, Alabama in 1999.
The state’s governor will set the exact date of Miller’s execution, which will be carried out by nitrogen gas, the Alabama attorney general’s office said in a February court filing.
Eugene Miller’s defense has an ongoing federal lawsuit challenging the execution method as a violation of the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, citing witness descriptions of Kenneth Smith’s death, the AP said.
“Instead of addressing 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. His lawyers are expected to ask a federal judge to block the execution.
More statements will be executed with this method
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the state will try to carry out more death sentences using nitrogen gas.
“The state of Alabama is prepared to carry out the execution of Miller’s sentence by nitrogen hypoxia,” the attorney general’s office wrote in the February motion.
Kenneth Smith the first executed
On January 25, 2024, Kenneth Smith was executed, becoming the first convict to be executed with nitrogen hypoxia.
Witnesses said the condemned man trembled and convulsed with seizure-like movements for several minutes on the gurney in the execution chamber when he was executed.
What is running like with nitrogen hypoxia?
For this execution they place a mask on the inmate, where oxygen is replaced by nitrogen. This causes a depletion of the oxygen level in the air when breathing. Consequently, dizziness, nausea, loss of consciousness and severe convulsions, as witnesses said, up to asphyxiation, can occur.
With nitrogen hypoxia, the prisoner only breathes this gas in pure form. Since it is only nitrogen, this means that oxygen does not reach your brain or the rest of the tissues. As minutes pass, it causes death.
With information from AP
Keep reading:
- Kenneth Eugene Smith: Alabama executes a prisoner with nitrogen gas for the first time in the United States
- Kenneth Eugene Smith’s message before being executed with nitrogen gas: “Alabama has caused humanity to take a step back”