Despite 3 Botched Executions, Alabama Plans To Kill A Fourth Man Next Month

By Death Penalty Focus

(Update: Today, just two weeks after Alabama corrections officials botched the execution of Alan Miller, the state wants to try again. According to AL.com, the attorney general confirmed that he has asked the Alabama Supreme Court to set another execution date for Miller.)

As reported in last week’s Focus, for the second time in two months, Alabama corrections officials botched an execution on September 22, when they rushed to kill Alan Miller before his death warrant expired at midnight. They tried to find a vein for their lethal injection drugs for almost three hours before being forced to abandon the execution shortly before midnight.

Because the media and witnesses were kept in a separate waiting room with no communication with the execution team or Corrections Department representatives, no one knew what was happening until after midnight when, according to AL.com, Corrections Department Commissioner John Hamm told reporters that, “Due to the time constraints resulting in the lateness of the court proceedings, the execution was called off once it was determined the condemned’s veins could not be accessed in accordance with our protocol before the expiration of the death warrant.” As a result, Hamm said, Miller was returned to his cell. 

(An unnamed source told the Death Penalty Information Center that, “Miller had ‘about 18 needle marks’ in his arms and legs after the failed execution.”)