Country's 2nd Nitrogen Gas Execution Goes Forward

Alabama used nitrogen gas Thursday to execute a man convicted of killing three people in back-to-back workplace shootings, the second time the method that has generated debate about its humaneness has been used in the country, the AP reports. Alan Eugene Miller, 59, was pronounced dead at 6:38pm local time at a south Alabama prison. He shook and trembled on the gurney for about two minutes with his body at times pulling against the restraints. That was followed by about six minutes of periodic gasping breaths. Miller was convicted of killing three men—Lee Holdbrooks, Christopher Scott Yancy, and Terry Jarvis—in 1999 and the state had previously attempted to execute him by lethal injection in 2022, but called it off after being unable to connect an IV line to the 351-pound inmate.

"I didn't do anything to be in here," Miller said in his final words that were at times muffled by the mask that covered his face from forehead to chin. The execution was the second to use the new method Alabama first employed in January, when Kenneth Smith was put to death. The method involves placing a respirator gas mask over the inmate's face to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death by lack of oxygen. Alabama officials and advocates have argued over whether Smith suffered an unconstitutional level of pain during his execution after he shook in seizure-like spasms for more than two minutes while strapped to the gurney and then gasped for breath for several minutes.

A delivery truck driver, Miller was convicted of capital murder for the Aug. 5, 1999, shootings that claimed three lives and shocked the city of Pelham, a suburban city just south of Birmingham. He first shot two of his co-workers at Ferguson Enterprises before shooting the third man at Post Airgas, where he had previously worked. Trial testimony indicated that Miller was paranoid and believed his co-workers had been gossiping about him. Miller was one of five inmates scheduled to be put to death in the span of one week, an unusually high number that defies a yearslong trend of decline in the use of the death penalty in the US.

(More Alabama stories.)