After careful consideration of David Earl Miller's clemency request, I am declining to intervene in this case.
In this undated photo provided by Helen Standifer, her daughter Lee Standifer posing for a photo. David Earl Miller, who is to scheduled to be executed next week, was convicted for the 1981 murder of Lee Standifer. (Helen Standifer via AP)NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – A Tennessee inmate became the second person to die in just over a month Thursday, nearly two decades after the state adopted lethal injection as its preferred method of execution.
David Earl Miller, 61, was pronounced dead at 7:25 p.m. Thursday at a Nashville maximum-security prison, corrections officials said.
Both Miller and inmate Edmund Zagorski before him chose the electric chair over lethal injection, a process proponents said would be painless and humane.
But the inmates argued in court that Tennessee’s current midazolam-based method causes a prolonged and torturous death. They pointed to the August execution of Billy Ray Irick, which took around 20 minutes and during which he coughed and huffed before turning a dark purple.