Gov. Kay Ivey schedules nitrogen execution for Alan Eugene Miller

Alabama will attempt to execute Alan Eugene Miller for the second time, but this time through nitrogen gas instead of lethal injection.

Gov. Kay Ivey has scheduled Miller’s execution over the 1999 murders of three coworkers to take place between midnight on Sept. 26 and 6 a.m. on Sept. 27, marking the second time the state will execute someone using nitrogen hypoxia after using the same method to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith in January.

The Alabama Supreme Court on May 2 allowed Miller’s execution to proceed.

Miller was convicted of capital murder in 2000 for the 1999 deaths of Lee Michael Holdbrooks, Christopher S. Yancy, and Terry Lee Jarvis, who Miller believed were spreading rumors about him at work. Miller’s attorneys claimed he suffers from mental illness and that played a role in the shooting deaths of the victims.

The execution scheduled for September marks the second time the state will attempt to execute Miller. Miller was one of three death row inmates who went through botched executions in 2022. Alabama tried to execute him for the first time in September 2022, but Miller was one of three executions that the state botched that year.

In July 2022, Joe Nathan James, Jr. was executed after an attempt that lasted more than two and a half hours. The Atlantic reported that an independent autopsy revealed multiple puncture wounds to his body, suggesting multiple attempts to secure a vein to deliver the drugs needed to execute him.

Miller’s execution that September was called off after staff tried for two hours to establish an IV line but failed. He said he was left bleeding while hung vertically on the gurney. Two months later, Kenneth Eugene Smith’s execution was postponed after another effort to establish IV lines failed.

Ivey placed a temporary moratorium on executions shortly after Smith’s botched execution to allow the Department of Corrections time to review the lethal injection protocol and address the problems.  Ivey lifted the moratorium in February 2023, allowing executions to resume, after Corrections said it had made changes to the protocols. Neither Ivey nor DOC explained what those were.

Miller filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court at the end of March seeking to stop his pending execution. In the suit, his attorneys alleged that the state was retaliating against him for speaking about the state’s botched execution attempt, a violation of his free speech rights.

Miller’s execution will be the second time that Alabama will try to carry out a nitrogen gas execution. Smith was executed in January under the method. Media witnesses, including the Alabama Reflector, reported that Smith writhed and convulsed during his execution.