The authorities in the US state of Alabama on Thursday carried out the state’s second execution with a new method, where the condemned is suffocated in nitrogen, also known as nitrogen.
The person executed is Alan Miller, a 65-year-old man from the state who has been in prison for more than two decades after he was convicted in 2000 of shooting and killing three men.
He was pronounced dead at 01:38 on Friday night Danish time, says Alabama’s governor, Kay Ivey, in a press release.
An execution with nitrogen takes place when the person sentenced to death inhales pure nitrogen, which displaces the oxygen in the body.
The lack of oxygen means that the person sentenced to death becomes unconscious before they die from it. The United Nations has previously condemned the method, which it says can result in a painful death.
Authorities in Alabama have defended the method, saying it is “effective and humane.”
Miller has been awaiting execution since his conviction in 2000.
The state tried to execute him by lethal injection in September 2022, but it was called off as it was not possible to carry out the execution before midnight that day.
Miller subsequently sued the prison for the treatment he received during the attempted execution.
According to Miller, prison staff repeatedly jabbed him with needles over the course of an hour while he was tied to a bench. He also said they left him “hanging vertically”.
The following month, authorities decided that Miller should be executed by nitrogen instead of lethal injection.
At the time, the method had never been used before, either in Alabama or the rest of the world.
It was first used in January of this year when Alabama executed Kenneth Eugene Smith, who had been sentenced to death for killing Elizabeth Sennett in 1988.
/ritzau/Reuters
Source: www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk
