Alabama has formally requested the state’s Supreme Court to set a date for the execution of death row inmate Alan Eugene Miller, utilizing the method of nitrogen hypoxia.

The filing, submitted on Wednesday, follows Alabama’s recent use of nitrogen hypoxia in the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith, marking the first application of this controversial and contested death penalty method in the United States.

Both Smith and Miller were originally slated for lethal injection, but Smith’s initial execution was marred by complications, leading to the cancellation of both executions.

Initially scheduled for September 22, 2022, Miller’s execution was halted due to the inability to complete the process before the midnight deadline.

Subsequently, Miller filed a federal lawsuit opposing death by lethal injection, the method initially intended for his execution by the Alabama Department of Corrections.

In his lawsuit, Miller recounted a distressing episode during the first attempt, where prison staff struggled to find a vein, subjecting him to needle pricks for over an hour and leaving him hanging vertically while strapped to a gurney, CBS News reported.

In September 2022, the state’s highest court ruled that Miller’s execution must proceed exclusively through nitrogen hypoxia, a decision eventually accepted by the Alabama Department of Corrections after earlier contesting the court’s injunction.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, in Wednesday’s filing, expressed the state’s readiness to execute Miller through nitrogen hypoxia, asserting that “it is once more the appropriate time for the execution of his sentence.”

Miller, aged 59, received a death sentence for a 1999 workplace rampage in suburban Birmingham, during which he killed Terry Jarvis, Lee Holdbrooks, and Scott Yancy.

Alabama, along with Oklahoma and Mississippi, is one of three states permitting nitrogen hypoxia as an alternative to traditional capital punishment methods.

The use of this method has faced criticism for being experimental and potentially causing undue pain and danger for the condemned and others present in the execution chamber.

United Nations experts have raised concerns about the potential for severe suffering during execution by pure nitrogen inhalation, emphasizing the lack of scientific evidence to suggest otherwise.

Written by B.C. Begley