State of Alabama to allow execution of convicted murderer via nitrogen gas
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WHNT) — Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall announced that the State of Alabama has settled a lawsuit that will allow the execution of a convicted murderer to proceed as scheduled in September.
Alan Miller had challenged the method of his execution, Nitrogen Hypoxia, for months. The two sides had spent months in discovery, anticipating a major hearing on Aug. 6. However, after reviewing key documents and deposing the State’s witnesses, Miller has agreed to settle with the State.
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The settlement terms remain confidential, but the result will be the dismissal of Miller’s lawsuit with prejudice.
“The resolution of this case confirms that Alabama’s nitrogen hypoxia system is reliable and humane,” Attorney General Marshall said. “Miller’s complaint was based on media speculation that Kenneth Smith suffered cruel and unusual punishment in the January 2024 execution, but what the State demonstrated to Miller’s legal team undermined that false narrative. Miller’s execution will go forward as planned in September.”
Alabama was the first State in the nation to use nitrogen gas as a method of execution in January when it successfully executed Kenneth Smith for the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of Elizabeth Sennett.
Although Miller sued in 2022 to ensure that his method of execution would be nitrogen hypoxia, he later asked a federal court to force the State to change its protocol.
Attorney General Marshall said Miller’s speculative complaint relied on news reports, an unsworn statement by Kenneth Smith’s lawyer, and hyperbolic claims by Smith’s spiritual advisor that Smith appeared to be in discomfort during his execution.
The State responded to Miller’s claims that Smith was holding his breath and that much of the reporting wrongly attributed Smith’s early movements to nitrogen gas.
Smith’s expert, Dr. Phillip Nitschke, explained that if Smith had “taken deep breaths…, he would, almost certainly, have lost consciousness and died much sooner” than he did.
Miller has spent over 20 years on death row for the murders of Lee Holdbrooks, Scott Yancey and Terry Lee Jarvis on Aug. 5, 1999. Miller had worked with the victims and claimed that they had spread rumors about him.
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