The state of Alabama considered experimenting with a new method of execution on a man scheduled to die this month, raising the question of whether or not such deadly experimentation on a human being can ever be ethical or appropriate.
Alan Eugene Miller was sentenced to death after killing three people in 1999. He is set to be executed on September 22 via lethal injection, and since Miller allegedly hates needles, the door was opened to experimenting with a new execution method: nitrogen hypoxia.
Currently, lethal injection is listed as the official execution method in Alabama, though nitrogen hypoxia was approved in 2018, even though it had never before been tested. According to CBS News, Miller opted to die via nitrogen hypoxia instead of lethal injection, but the paperwork was lost. “I did not want to be stabbed with a needle,” he reportedly said.
However, his lawyer, Mara Klebaner, raised concerns over his execution via an untested method.
With nitrogen hypoxia, Miller would breathe in pure nitrogen, depriving his body of oxygen and thereby causing asphyxiation. In the best-case scenario, it would be a humane way to put someone to death, without pain and trauma. But in the worst-case scenario, it would be horrifying and painful for him, and traumatic for those watching. Since it’s never been used before, there is no way to truly know.
READ: ‘He was suffocating’: Botched death row executions serve as warning sign for assisted suicide
Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told Newsweek last year that there are ethical issues with experimenting on human beings in such a manner.
“In a very real sense, execution by nitrogen hypoxia is experimental,” he said. “It has never been done before and no one has any idea whether it is going to work the way its proponents say it will. And there is no way to test it because it is completely unethical to experimentally kill someone against their will. If nitrogen hypoxia works as its proponents suggest, it may be a legitimate alternative to lethal injection. If it doesn’t, it will be just another method of execution that — like the electric chair and lethal injection — was promoted as being quick, effective and painless but isn’t.”
A judge ordered the state of Alabama to determine, once and for all, if it is ready to execute someone using nitrogen hypoxia. Ultimately, Alabama chose not to move forward with the nitrogen hypoxia execution, though it could still be used on another person in the future. Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm released a brief statement saying Alabama “cannot carry out an execution by nitrogen hypoxia on September 22,” but gave no information on if they would consider it in the near future for someone else.
Lethal injection is the state’s preferred method of execution because it has been thought to be more humane than other execution methods, yet decades of its use have shown that it can actually be excruciatingly painful, with some executions taking hours to complete while the person writhed and moaned in pain.
The drugs used in lethal injection — despite their constant failures — are often used in assisted suicide as well. If Alabama moves forward with the use of nitrogen hypoxia in executions, would it also become an acceptable way for doctors to kill their patients once death row inmates have been experimented on first? Only time will tell, but for now, what is clear is that experimenting on a human being with the intent of causing their death is never ethical or acceptable.
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