MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alan Eugene Miller became the second man in the nation executed by nitrogen gas Thursday when the state of Alabama put him to death for a 1999 triple homicide, after failing to do so by lethal injection in 2022.
Miller was taken into the execution chamber on Thursday evening at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, and was pronounced dead at 6:38 p.m., Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement. Miller gasped, shook, and struggled against his restraints for two minutes after the gas began to flow.
He continued to gasp and move for several more minutes after apparently losing consciousness, movements that Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm described as expected and “involuntary.”
Miller, 59, was convicted of killing three people during a pair of 1999 workplace shootings in suburban Birmingham, Alabama. He was living in Autauga County at the time.
He had been on death row since 2000 and was set to be executed by lethal injection in September 2022, but staff could not gain access to his veins for the IV lines before his death warrant expired. Miller said that during the aborted 2022 lethal injection attempt , prison staff poked him with needles for over an hour as they tried to find a vein and at one point left him hanging vertically as he lay strapped to a gurney.