The Guardian US reports on the abandonment of the lethal injection of Alan Miller in Alabama after prison officials had trouble accessing his veins before a midnight deadline, the second botched execution in Alabama in recent months.
“Alabama officials tortured Joe Nathan James to death for over three hours trying to set up an IV line, and then covered it up. Instead of pausing and investigating how their actions led to what may have been the longest recorded execution in our country’s history, they instead rushed Alan Miller to the execution chamber weeks later and tried to kill him in secret,” said Maya Foa, director of Reprieve US.
“Officials knew it was likely they would subject Alan Miller to the very same long and agonizing procedure as Joe Nathan James and Doyle Lee Hamm [whose execution was abandoned in 2018 after prison officials spent two and a half hours trying to access his veins] and yet they ploughed ahead anyway – adding to the state’s horrific history of botched executions.
“It is hard to see how they can persist with this broken method of execution that keeps going catastrophically wrong, again and again. In its desperation to execute, Alabama is experimenting on prisoners behind closed doors – surely the definition of cruel and unusual punishment.”
