ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — Alabama officials canceled Thursday’s lethal injection of a man convicted in a 1999 workplace shooting because of timing issues and problems accessing the inmate’s veins.
Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said prison officials halted the execution after they determined that “inmate Arthur Miller’s veins could not be accessed in accordance with our protocol” earlier of a deadline of midnight to start the execution. Miller has been returned to his cell at the South Alabama jail, Hamm said.
The stay of execution came three hours after a divided US Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution to begin. The 5-4 decision lifted an injunction granted after Miller’s lawyers said the state lost paperwork calling for his execution to be carried out by nitrogen hypoxia, a method legally available to him but never used before in the US.
Miller, 57, was convicted of killing three people in a workplace hit-and-run in 1999, and was sentenced to death.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Previous AP story follows below.
ATMORE, Ala. (AP) – A divided U.S. Supreme Court said Alabama can proceed Thursday night with the lethal injection of an inmate convicted in a 1999 workplace shooting, overturning two convictions lower courts that sided with the convicted man and his request for another convict. method of execution.
The 5-4 decision overturned rulings by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and a federal judge that lethal injection could not continue after Alan Miller’s lawyers said the state would lose their documentation requesting that their execution be carried out by nitrogen hypoxia, a legal method. available to him, but never before used in the US
Miller, 57, was convicted of killing three people in a workplace hit-and-run in 1999, and was sentenced to death. A judge blocked the state’s enforcement plan earlier this week.
Miller testified that he had turned in the paperwork four years ago selecting nitrogen hypoxia as the method of execution, placing it in a slot in his cell door at Holman Correctional Facility so that a worker you pick up the prison.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker Jr. issued a preliminary injunction barring the state from killing Miller by any means other than nitrogen hypoxia, after finding it was “substantially probable ” that Miller “submitted a timely election form even though the State says it has no physical record of a form.”
The Supreme Court’s ruling Thursday night overturned that injunction at the state’s request. The justices lifted the stay around 9 p.m., giving the state a three-hour window to begin the execution before the death warrant expires at midnight. The July execution of Joe Nathan James took more than three hours to begin after the state had difficulty setting up an IV line.
Although Alabama has authorized nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method, it has never executed anyone using the method, and the state’s prison system has not finalized procedures for using it to carry out a death sentence.
Nitrogen hypoxia is a proposed method of execution in which death would occur by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, thus depriving him of the oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions. It is authorized as an execution method in three states, but no state has attempted to kill an inmate by the unproven method. Alabama officials told the judge they are working to finalize the protocol.
Many states have struggled to buy execution drugs in recent years after US and European drug companies began blocking the use of their products in lethal injections. This has led some to seek alternative methods.
When Alabama approved nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method in 2018, state law gave inmates a short window to designate it as their execution method. Miller testified that he opted for nitrogen when the form was distributed on death row because he did not like needles.
“That the state is not yet prepared to execute anyone for nitrogen hypoxia does not prejudice the state or the public from honoring Miller’s timely choice of nitrogen hypoxia. Conversely, if no court order, Miller will be irrevocably deprived of his choice about how he will die, a choice granted to him by the Alabama Legislature,” Huffaker wrote.
Miller had visits from family members and an attorney Thursday as he waited to see if his execution would move forward. The prison system said he was given a tray of food that included a meatloaf, a steak, macaroni and chips.
Prosecutors said Miller, a delivery truck driver, killed co-workers Lee Holdbrooks and Scott Yancy at a business in suburban Birmingham and then proceeded to shoot former supervisor Terry Jarvis in a business where Miller had previously worked. Each man was shot several times and Miller was captured after a road chase.
Testimony at trial indicated that Miller believed the men were spreading rumors about him, including that he was gay. A psychiatrist hired by the defense found Miller suffering from a serious mental illness, but also said Miller’s condition was not bad enough to use as the basis for an insanity defense under state law.
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This story has been corrected to show that Alabama’s last execution was in July.