Alabama inmate Alan Miller executed with nitrogen gas Thursday for 1999 shootings

Nitrogen hypoxia

If Miller’s execution happens Thursday night, it will be the second carried out in America using the method of nitrogen hypoxia — having an inmate breathe in pure nitrogen, lose consciousness and die of asphyxiation.

The first nitrogen execution also happened in Alabama, when Kenneth Smith was executed in January. That execution drew international attention, as groups around the world expressed outrage over the method and after Smith thrashed against the gurney for several minutes before losing consciousness.

The U.S. Supreme Court had allowed Smith’s execution to proceed, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed a dissent, with which two other justices joined.

In that document, Sotomayor noted Alabama failed in its first attempt to execute Smith by lethal injection—an execution attempt that happened just after the attempted execution of Miller in 2022. She also wrote Smith predicted “Alabama’s protocol will cause him to suffocate and choke to death on his own vomit. I sincerely hope that he is not proven correct a second time. With deep sadness, but commitment to the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment, I respectfully dissent.”

The Alabama Attorney General’s Office, led by Attorney General Steve Marshall, said in a filing to the high court in that case that nitrogen hypoxia was “perhaps the most humane method of execution ever devised.”

The method works by strapping a gas mask onto the condemned inmate and pumping pure nitrogen into the mask. Some Alabama Death Row inmates’ lawsuits have centered around calls for not using a mask for the procedure.

After Miller’s case settled last month, Marshall issued a statement saying that the nitrogen protocol was “reliable and humane.” He said the lawsuit “was based on media speculation that Kenneth Smith suffered cruel and unusual punishment in the January 2024 execution, but what the State demonstrated to Miller’s legal team undermined that false narrative.”

State officials have argued that Smith held his breath at the beginning of his execution, delaying the nitrogen entering his body and causing his seizure-like movements.

But Miller’s lawyers argued that the state doesn’t offer any proof for their claims that Smith held his breath, and the state “hang(s) their hat exclusively on the self-serving testimony of a witness who claims to have remembered Mr. Smith’s oxygen levels nearly seven months after the execution.”

The witness— an execution team captain — didn’t write down those oxygen levels, according to Miller’s lawyers, nor tell anyone about them on the night of the execution.

“In fact, evidence in the record suggest that the witness could not even see the levels from his position in the execution chamber, and the execution log from Mr. Smith’s execution… undercuts (the state’s) entire argument,” said a court filing.

In a deposition earlier this summer, Miller said he has no intention of holding his breath or resisting his execution, but he’s worried the state will fail at securing his gas mask because they’re “incompetent.”

“I don’t think y’all know what you’re doing,” Miller told a state attorney during the deposition. “And these guys can’t even open a cell door sometimes. They’re keystone cops is basically what they are.”

Death penalty opponents on Wednesday delivered petitions asking Gov. Kay Ivey to halt the execution, according to the Associated Press. Miller is one of five death row inmates scheduled to be put to death in the span of one week, an unusually high number of executions that defies a yearslong trend of decline in the use of the death penalty in the U.S.

The crime

The three men killed by Miller were gunned down at their workplaces on that August day in 1999, in the Shelby County city of Pelham. Shortly after the slayings, a friend of one victim summed up the situation: “There will probably never be any sense made of this … There never is.”

The men died after Miller opened fire in two Highway 31 businesses while alleging his current and former co-workers were “spreading rumors” about him, according to court records.

Yancy and Holdbrooks were killed at Ferguson Enterprises; Jarvis was slain at Post Airgas, located just down the street.

Shelby County District Attorney Robby Owens, in his opening statement in Miller’s trial nearly a year after the shootings, described the killings as methodical and cold. “These men are not just murdered. They are executed,” he said.

Efforts by AL.com to reach relatives of the three men killed by Miller were unsuccessful prior to his first execution attempt.

But immediately after the slayings, some friends did talk to The Birmingham News about the men and how they would be missed.

Yancy was 28 when he was gunned down, leaving behind a wife and two children. An article published in the days after the shooting by The Birmingham News quoted Yancy’s pastor, calling Yancy a dedicated family man and friend who didn’t seek attention for his many good deeds.

Yancy and Holdbrooks were close friends, and both graduated from Thompson High School; Holdbrooks in 1985 and Yancy in 1989, according to the former principal. Friends and family told the newspaper in 1999 that Yancy liked to talk about his job at Ferguson and loved spending time at his church, where he chaired the church maintenance committee. Reports say he was gentle, despite his large frame of 6 feet and 6 inches.

Ferguson’s Atlanta branch sent two Japanese maple trees that were planted in front of the Pelham office in memory of Yancy, a 10-year employee, and Holdbrooks. Officials from the company declined to comment in 1999 after the shootings, saying they were focusing on letting their employees grieve.

Holdbrooks was 32 when he was killed. He suffered six gunshot wounds, with the sixth being the fatal shot fired at close range.

According to reports at the time of the slayings, he had recently celebrated his fourth anniversary with his wife. The couple had no children, but The Birmingham News reported Holdbrooks doted on his dog, Oreo. He had just taught the pet to catch a Frisbee from a long distance.

Jarvis was 39, working at Post Airgas when he was shot five times, also at close range. Witnesses said that before he was shot, Miller confronted Jarvis about spreading rumors. Jarvis denied the accusation but was shot just seconds later.

Jarvis wasn’t married and had no children.

He was described as “jolly” and his sister said later in August 1999 that, if Jarvis was alive, he would likely be deep-sea fishing in Florida.

At a joint memorial service for the three men held that summer, Jarvis’ pastor said the community must hold out hope.

Rev. Donald Vanderslice of Macedonia Baptist Church said, “In the midst of this tragic time, we must have courage; courage for today, courage for tomorrow.”

Alan Miller’s past

Court records filed by an appeal team for Miller in 2006 talked about his “unstable” upbringing and the “extreme physical and psychological abuse” he suffered from his father. Those records also note a “well-documented history of family mental illness.”

Records show Miller’s father “did not like his son at all,” according to Miller’s mother. “After (Miller) was born, his father frequently called him ‘the devil’ or ‘a demon,’” the appeal stated. “He ‘deliberately tried to instill terror in the Miller children.’”

Appeal records state Miller’s father belittled him, called him names, and wouldn’t let him participate in sports or activities. He also physically beat Miller, resulting in multiple concussions and other injuries, and stabbed him with a knife. Miller’s father also, according to the records, would often wave a pistol and threaten to kill his family. This abuse happened to all the Miller children and Miller’s mother but was often worse with Miller himself.

The Millers lived with rats and cockroaches roaming their beds “in constant poverty,” the record stated, and were never accepted by any community they moved into because of the father’s behavior.

Miller did not testify at his trial.