Alabama Prepares for 2nd Execution by Nitrogen Gas

A month after carrying out the world's first execution using nitrogen gas, Alabama wants a repeat. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall's office asked the state Supreme Court on Wednesday to set an execution date for 59-year-old Alan Eugene Miller, who was convicted of killing three people during a pair of 1999 workplace shootings in suburban Birmingham. "The State of Alabama is prepared to carry out the execution of Miller's sentence by means of nitrogen hypoxia," the attorney general's office wrote, per the AP, adding that Miller has been on death row since 2000 and that it is time to carry out his sentence. An attorney listed for Miller did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

The execution date request comes as the state and anti-death penalty advocates continue to present opposing views of what happened during the state's first execution using nitrogen. Kenneth Smith shook and convulsed in seizure-like movements for several minutes on the death chamber gurney as he was put to death Jan. 25. Marshall maintained that the execution was "textbook" and said the state will seek to carry out more death sentences using nitrogen gas. "As of last night, nitrogen hypoxia as a means of execution is no longer an untested method. It is a proven one," Marshall said the morning after Smith's execution, extending an offer of help to other states considering the method.

But a lawsuit filed by another death row inmate seeking to block the use of nitrogen said witness accounts show that Smith's execution was a botched "human experiment" showing "nitrogen gas asphyxiation is neither quick nor painless, but agonizing and painful." Like Smith, Miller survived a previous lethal injection attempt. The state attempted to execute Miller by lethal injection in September 2022. The execution was called off after officials were unable to get an intravenous line connected to the 351-pound prisoner's veins. After that attempt, the state struck an agreement with Miller's lawyers that it would never again seek to execute Miller by lethal injection and that any attempt to execute him in the future would be done with nitrogen gas. (More execution stories.)