Second gas execution set

Alabama has scheduled a second execution with nitrogen gas, months after the state became the first to put a person 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 during a 1999 workplace shooting. The execution will be carried out by nitrogen gas, the governor’s office said. Miller survived a 2022 lethal injection attempt.

The governor’s action comes a week after the Alabama Supreme Court authorised the execution.

In January, Alabama used nitrogen gas to execute Kenneth Smith. Smith shook and convulsed for several minutes on a gurney as he was put to death on January 25.

A nitrogen hypoxia execution causes death by forcing the inmate to breathe pure nitrogen, depriving him or her of the oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions. Alabama and some other states have looked for new ways to execute inmates because the drugs used in lethal injections, the most common execution method in the United States, are increasingly difficult to find.

Miller 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 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 lawyers wrote in the lawsuit. It is anticipated that his attorneys will ask a federal judge to block the execution from going forward.