An Alabama death row inmate gave a chilling eight-word final statement in the moments before his execution by a controversial method after his first attempt failed.
Alan Eugene Miller, 59, on Thursday became the second person to die from asphyxiation with nitrogen gas after killing three people in back-to-back shootings at his workplace in 1999.
“I didn’t do anything to be here,” he said as he was strapped to a gurney at a prison in Atmore, on the Florida border.
‘I didn’t do anything to be on death row,’ Miller clarified before asking his relatives to ‘take care’ of someone, according to AL.com.
Alabama prison officials then pumped nitrogen gas into a mask that covered Miller’s face from forehead to chin, forcing him to shake and shake on the gurney for about two minutes.
Alan Eugene Miller, 59, on Thursday became the second person to die from asphyxiation by nitrogen gas.
His left hand shook and he clenched his fist several times, and he was forced to lift his head off the stretcher.
This was followed by about six minutes of periodic gasping breaths before becoming still.
Miller was finally pronounced dead around 6:38 p.m., Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said at a later news conference, noting that the two minutes of shaking was to be expected.
“There will be involuntary body movements as the body runs out of oxygen, so that’s nothing we wouldn’t expect,” Hamm said.
“Everything went as planned and according to our protocol, so it went just as we had planned.”
But Hamm later admitted that a correctional officer had to adjust the inmate’s mask before the gas began to flow.
“That’s just making sure the mask is tight,” he said.
The execution was the second to use the new method that Alabama first employed in January, when Kenneth Smith was executed.
The method involves placing a respirator gas mask over the inmate’s face to replace the breathing air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death from lack of oxygen.
He was arrested in August 1999 after shooting and killing three of his former co-workers.
Miller had selected the option to die by asphyxiation on a 2018 form distributed to death row inmates in Alabama, AL.com reports.
But the state was not yet prepared to use nitrogen hypoxia as a means of execution when officials received an execution order for Miller on Sept. 22 and opted to attempt to execute him by lethal injection.
That attempt was called off when state officials said they could not access Miller’s veins before the execution order expired at midnight.
The inmate later filed a lawsuit against the prison, alleging that prison workers jabbed him for ninety minutes while attempting to start an IV and left him hanging vertically as he lay strapped to a gurney. reports the Montgomery Advisor.
State prosecutors eventually settled the lawsuit and agreed not to execute Miller using any method other than nitrogen hypoxia.
The execution method was finally used earlier this year in Smith’s execution, in which the inmate was seen shaking, writhing and flailing on the gurney for two minutes after nitrogen gas began filling his mask.
This was followed by five to seven minutes of heavy breathing and light gasping.
Miller was previously scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in 2022.
Miller subsequently questioned the state’s nitrogen hypoxia protocol, claiming that it could cause him undue suffering, thereby violating Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
His attorneys argued that the state offered no evidence for its claims that Smith held his breath and instead “relied exclusively on the self-interested testimony of a witness who claims to have remembered Smith’s oxygen levels for nearly seven months.” . after execution.
The witness, a captain on the execution team, did not write down the oxygen levels or tell anyone about the oxygen levels on the night of the execution, Miller’s lawyers argued, according to AL.com.
Attorney General Steve Marshall touted an agreement with Miller as proof that Alabama’s nitrogen gas execution method is constitutional.
“In fact, the evidence in the record suggests that the witness could not even see the levels from his position in the execution chamber, and the execution record of Mr. Smith’s execution… undermines (the state’s entire argument ),” they argued.
Miller also said in a statement that he was concerned that the state could not insure his gas mask because they are “incompetent.”
“I don’t think everyone knows what they’re doing,” he told a state prosecutor. And sometimes these guys can’t even open a cell door.
The lawsuit was finally settled last month and the terms of the settlement were confidential.
But Attorney General Steve Marshall touted the agreement as proof that Alabama’s nitrogen gas execution method is constitutional.
“The resolution of this case confirms that Alabama’s nitrogen hypoxia system is reliable and humane,” he said at the time.
Then, after Thursday’s execution, Marshall said: ‘Tonight, despite disinformation campaigns by political activists, out-of-state lawyers and biased media, the State demonstrated once again that nitrogen hypoxia is humane and effective.
“Miller’s execution was as expected.”
Miller shot each of the victims (Lee Holdbrooks, 32, Scott Yancy, 28, and Terry Lee Jarvis, 39) multiple times before being arrested.
Miller, a delivery truck driver, was convicted of capital murder in 2000 for the Aug. 5, 1999, shootings that claimed three lives and shocked the city of Pelham, a suburban city south of Birmingham.
He had worked with each of the three victims – Lee Holdbrooks, 32, Scott Yancy, 28, and Terry Lee Jarvis, 39 – and had accused them of spreading rumors about him.
Police say they entered Ferguson Enterprises and fatally shot Yancy three times, leaving him unable to move after the first shot “passed through his groin and into his spine, paralyzing him.”
Holdbrooks was also shot about six times and attempted to crawl down a hallway to escape before Miller shot him in the head, “causing him to die in a pool of blood,” according to court documents. obtained by CNN.
Miller then headed to his previous employer, Post Airgas, where Jarvis worked.
He came in and said, ‘Hey, I heard you’ve been spreading rumors about me.’
Jarvis responded that he had not been spreading any rumors, a witness said, but moments later Miller shot Jarvis “several times.”
He was later captured on the road with a Glock pistol with one bullet in the chamber and 11 bullets in a magazine, police said.
Miller had initially pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but later withdrew the plea.
A psychiatrist hired by the defense said Miller was mentally ill, but that his condition was not serious enough to be used as the basis for an insanity defense, according to court documents.
Jurors convicted Miller after 20 minutes of deliberation and recommended by a vote of 10 to 2 that he receive the death penalty.
“Just as Alan Miller cowardly fled after maliciously committing three calculated murders in 1999, he has attempted to escape justice for two decades,” Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement Thursday.
‘Tonight justice was finally served for these three victims through the inmate’s chosen method of execution.
“His actions were not madness, but pure evil,” the governor said. “Three families were forever changed by their heinous crimes and I pray they can find solace all these years later.”
Relatives of the three victims did not witness the execution and did not issue a statement to be read to reporters, state officials said.