Alabama has executed Alan Eugene Miller, marking the second time the state has put a man to death using nitrogen gas.
Governor Kay Ivey announced his death at 6.41pm. Miller’s last meal was hamburger steak, a baked potato and French fries. He was visited by three attorneys, his brother-in-law, two sisters, brother, spiritual advisor and a friend.
It was the fifth execution since Friday. Freddie Khalil Owens, Marcellus Williams, Travis James Mullis and Emmanuel Littlejohn had all been put to death in the days before Miller’s execution.
Miller, 59, had been convicted of the 1999 murders of Terry Lee Jarvis, 39, Lee Holdbrooks, 32, and Christopher Yancy, 28. The inmate killed the men on August 2 that year over suspicions they had discussed his sexuality, per USA Today. Prosecutors said Miller killed Holdbrooks and Yancy at their place of employment and then drove to a second business to shoot Jarvis.
The murders happened where Miller had worked or previously worked, and the victims were found with several bullet wounds.
The execution at the William C Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore came days after a report from The Intercept claiming some of the state’s executioners have been accused of violence and misconduct. The Alabama Department of Corrections did not respond to the outlet’s request for comment.
Miller had raised his own concerns over how the state planned to put him to death.
In January, Kenneth Eugene Smith, another Alabama inmate, became the first person in the world to be executed via nitrogen gas. Witnesses said they saw Smith “writhing and thrashing” for about two to four minutes followed by five minutes of heavy breathing.
Smith’s spiritual advisor, Reverend Jeff Hood, called it “torture.”
Nitrogen hypoxia forces inmates to breathe nitrogen through a mask that displaces the oxygen in their system. The method rose in popularity among death penalty states because the drugs for lethal injections became difficult to find.
State officials said Smith’s execution faced complications because the inmate held his breath at the beginning, which delayed the flow of nitrogen gas into his system. They had expected him to be dead of asphyxiation within minutes after gas began to flow.
Alabama decided to execute Miller with nitrogen hypoxia following a failed lethal injection attempt in 2022 in which executioners could not establish an IV line. Miller alleged he was poked for 90 minutes while officials tried to execute him.
Additionally, the inmate said he had previously designated nitrogen hypoxia as his method of choice on a government form but the state said they had no record of that decision being made.
As a result, the state planned to move forward with nitrogen hypoxia in the event of a second attempt for Miller.
