Due to time constraints and difficulty getting into Alan Miller’s veins, the lethal injection execution was postponed.
Officials in Alabama have halted the lethal injection execution of a prisoner on death row because they couldn’t find a vein before the midnight deadline.
Alabama corrections commissioner John Hamm said the decision to call off the scheduled execution of Alan Miller was made after it became clear they could not get the process underway in time.
The last-minute reprieve came nearly three hours after the US Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution to go ahead.
“Due to time constraints resulting from the lateness of the court proceedings, the execution was called off once it was determined the condemned inmate’s veins could not be accessed in accordance with our protocol before the expiration of the death warrant,” Mr Hamm said.
The execution team had begun the process of trying to establish intravenous access, but he did not know for how long.
The execution was abandoned at around 11.30 pm on Thursday – half an hour before the state’s death warrant was set to expire.
Miller, a delivery truck driver, was convicted of killing three men in a workplace shooting rampage in 1999 near Birmingham, Alabama.