Alabama: Jeffery Lee’s nitrogen hypoxia execution averted at the last minute by court ruling
Jeffery James Lee, 49, was scheduled to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia on Thursday in the U.S. state of Alabama. Several courts blocked the execution method in Lee’s case at the last minute, citing the risk of “cruel and unusual punishment,” which is prohibited under the Constitution.
About three hours after the scheduled execution time, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Alabama’s request late Thursday to execute a man using nitrogen gas, after two lower court rulings had already banned the method in recent days.
The state had filed an emergency petition just hours before the scheduled execution, seeking to have the U.S. Supreme Court overturn the lower courts’ bans on the execution method. However, the Court upheld the District and Circuit Courts’ bans by a 6-3 vote.
Lee, who was convicted of murdering two people during a robbery at a pawn shop in 1998, will thus be spared execution by nitrogen, but the state may still use other methods, and it is unclear how quickly it will decide on a viable alternative and set a new execution date for Jeffery Lee.
In Alabama, three methods are provided for carrying out death sentences: lethal injection, the electric chair, or nitrogen, from which the condemned person must choose. Years ago, Lee had opted for nitrogen, a method that was completely untested at the time.
Since January 2024, it has been used seven times in Alabama and once in Louisiana, and based on eyewitness accounts, it is evident that the condemned suffocate for an extended period while conscious, in a manner akin to torture. To suggest that the method “leads to a quick death” and that the process is “humane, painless, effective, and reliable,” as its proponents claim, is simply not the case.
Last year, Lee therefore filed an appeal against the nitrogen protocol and requested instead execution by firing squad, a method not permitted in Alabama.
Lee’s legal team has also asked Governor Ivey to commute his sentence, in part because a judge sentenced Lee to death in 2000 even though a 7-to-5 majority of the jury had instead voted for life in prison without parole. This practice, known as a “judicial override,” whereby a judge could override the jury’s verdict, was banned in Alabama in 2017, but earlier cases such as Lee’s were not covered by the ban.