Alabama Seeks To Carry Out Second Execution Using Nitrogen Gas

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama is seeking to put a second inmate to death using nitrogen gas, a move that comes a month after the state carried out the first execution using the controversial new method.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office asked the state Supreme Court on Wednesday to set an execution date for Alan Eugene Miller. The state said Miller’s execution would be carried out using nitrogen. Miller, now 59, 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, 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 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.”

“The results of the first human