The second execution in the United States is to be carried out in Alabama using nitrogen hypoxia, a controversial method that critics say is akin to torture. CNNA previous attempt to execute 59-year-old Allen Eugene Miller using lethal injection was aborted two years ago after state officials said they couldn’t reach his veins before the execution warrant expired. Now on Thursday, he will be strapped to a gurney, where a respirator mask will be placed over his face with pure nitrogen piped through it. The result will be death by suffocation from lack of oxygen.
Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has set a time limit of 30 hours from Thursday morning for the 59-year-old’s execution. CNN Report.
Miller has been in prison for over two decades. He was sentenced to death in 2000 for the 1999 murders of Lee Holdbrooks, Scott Yancey, and Terry Lee Jarvis. According to the outlet, he had worked with each of the victims and became upset when he thought the three had “spread rumors” about him.
On August 5, 1999, Miller shot two of the three people at Ferguson Enterprises in Pelham, Alabama. Miller, armed with a pistol, said as he left his employer’s office, “I’m tired of people spreading rumors about me.” He then shot Scott Yancey three times and Lee Holdbrooks six times. He then went to his previous employer, Post Airgas, where Terry Lee Jarvis worked and shot him “numerous times.”
Miller was later caught on the highway with a Glock pistol with one round in the chamber and 11 rounds in the magazine. CNN,
A forensic psychiatrist who testified in Miller’s defense found that he was mentally ill and suffered from delusions, which led him to believe that the victims were spreading rumors about him. However, the psychiatrist concluded that Miller’s mental illness did not meet the standards for an insanity defense in Alabama.
Notably, Miller was executed via nitrogen hypoxia, nearly three years after Alabama authorities tried to execute him by lethal injection but failed because they could not reach his veins within the required time frame. This comes after the federal lawsuit filed by Miller over the use of nitrogen gas in his execution was settled last month.
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The 59-year-old had challenged the state’s nitrogen hypoxia protocol, claiming it caused him undue suffering, thus violating his Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The terms of the settlement are confidential, though state Attorney General Steve Marshall presented it as evidence that Alabama’s nitrogen gas execution method — which was used for the first and only time in the execution of Kenneth Smith earlier this year — is constitutional, according to the outlet.
“The resolution of this matter confirms that Alabama’s nitrogen hypoxia system is reliable and humane,” Mr. Marshall said in a statement.
