Alabama inmate Alan Eugene Miller has filed a legal motion requesting the US District Court for the Middle District of Alabama to block his nitrogen gas execution, scheduled to be the second of its kind in the United States. Miller was sentenced to death in 2000 for the murder of three individuals. Alabama law permits death row inmates to choose their method of execution, with options including lethal injection or nitrogen gas. Although Miller opted for nitrogen gas in September 2022, state officials claimed they never received his request, defaulting to lethal injection.
In a lawsuit against Alabama to enforce his choice of execution method, Miller was unsuccessful and subsequently had his execution rescheduled after the lethal injection procedure failed. The first nitrogen gas execution, conducted less than six months ago on Kenneth Smith, reportedly went awry. During Smith’s execution, multiple eyewitnesses described a “horrific scene” where he experienced severe physical reactions, prompting Miller’s lawyers to declare it a “disaster.”
Miller’s legal team argued that proceeding with the nitrogen gas execution under current protocols would violate his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishments. They are demanding specific conditions be met to ensure a more humane process, including the use of a mask that fits Miller properly, the involvement of qualified medical professionals, and administration of medical-grade nitrogen gas, among other stipulations.
To read more about Miller’s request and the detailed conditions his legal team has proposed, visit the full article on JURIST.
The legal motion seeks a preliminary injunction to delay the execution until the aforementioned conditions are guaranteed. For the court to grant this injunction, Miller must demonstrate that he would suffer “irreparable harm” without it and that the injunction would not “substantially harm” the state of Alabama or the public interest. His legal team contends that the execution’s potential pain constitutes irreparable harm, while the delay would be minimal and the public has a vested interest in upholding constitutional rights.
The nitrogen gas method has garnered significant criticism from international bodies such as the UN and Amnesty International, which have denounced it as experimental and inherently cruel.