A DEATH row inmate is scheduled to be executed by nitrogen gas months after the inhumane method caused another prisoner to suffer in agony for 22 minutes.
Convicted triple murderer Alan Eugene Miller, 59, will be executed in Alabama on Thursday, marking the second nitrogen gas execution the state will carry out this year.
Miller, who was convicted of the workplace murders of Lee Holdbrooks, Christopher Scott Yancy, and Terry Jarvis in 2000, was due to die by lethal injection in 2022 – but his execution was called off after prison staffers were unable to find a vein.
At the time, Miller was left hanging vertically on a gurney for over an hour as three prisoner staffers made several attempts to locate a vein, poking him multiple times in the process.
Now, the convicted murderer is slated to be executed by nitrogen gas.
Miller, who weighs over 350 pounds, previously testified in a court hearing that medical workers always have trouble locating his veins.
He fought to outright stop his execution in March but eventually agreed to be executed by nitrogen gas.
Court records obtained by NBC News showed Miller showed signs of concern that the prison staff would have trouble securing the mask over his face.
“Are these people that are going to fit [the mask], what’s their training,” Miller said.
“I’ve got a big old head. Nothing else fits my head.”
The Alabama Attorney General’s Office previously argued in court documents that the execution method would be “swift, painless, and inhumane.”
However, the attorney general’s office received backlash as some spectators called the method the “most violent” form of death after witnessing Kenneth Eugue Smith’s execution in January.
Smith died on January 25 after being administered pure nitrogen gas through a face mask while being strapped to a gurney.
The death row inmate, 58, was supposed to quickly lose consciousness seconds after inhaling the deadly gas, but he remained alert for several minutes, the Alabama Attorney General’s Office said at the time.
Instead, Smith shook and writhed on the gurney, ripping his head forward and back for approximately two minutes after the gas was administered, witnesses recalled.
As he laid on the gurney, Smith was breathing heavily for five to seven minutes before dying, according to Alabama Live.
Journalist Lee Hedgepeth, who was present during Smith’s execution, described the horrific site to BBC at the time.
“The curtains of the execution chamber pulled back. Kenny is lying strapped to a gurney. His upper body is strapped,” he recalled.
“Kenny begins to violently shake against the straps that are holding him,” Hedgepeth said after the prisoner was administered the gas.
“That violent shaking lasts for about four or five minutes.
“I’ve witnessed five executions in Alabama. Four of them lethal injection. One with nitrogen, and this was the most violent execution I have ever seen.”
What is nitrogen gas, and how does it work?
In 2018, Alabama authoritized the use of nitrogen gas as a method of execution for death row inmates.
Convicted murderer Kenneth Eugue Smith was the first inmate on death row to be executed by nitrogen gas on January 25, 2024.
Death row prisoner Alan Eugene Miller is scheduled to be executed via the same method on September 26, 2024.
What is nitrogen gas, and how does it work in executions?
- Nitrogen exists in the atmosphere and composes around 75% of the air that humans and animals breathe daily.
- However, the colorless and odorless gas is only safe to inhale when mixed with an appropriate oxygen concentration.
- If not, the air can be toxic.
- Nitrogen hypoxia is a process where pure nitrogen gas is concentrated to an extremely high level to be lethal.
- The concentrated nitrogen gas rapidly empties the body of oxygen.
- Death row inmates executed by nitrogen gas breathe pure nitrogen through a mask, which quickly displaces oxygen in their system.
