Alabama Nitrogen Execution for Convicted Double Murderer to Proceed Thursday After Appeals Court Returns Challenge for Review
A three-judge panel reversed a May ruling and sent the case back for study of whether nitrogen hypoxia violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The decision came hours before Jeffery Lee’s scheduled execution on Thursday.
Abc NewsA federal appeals court ruled Monday that Alabama’s nitrogen gas execution protocol requires additional study to determine whether it violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The three-judge panel reversed a district judge’s May finding that the method is constitutional and remanded the case for further consideration.
The ruling came in a lawsuit filed last year by Jeffery Lee, who is scheduled to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia on Thursday at a south Alabama prison.
The panel stopped short of staying the execution but directed the trial court to examine whether Lee’s proposed alternative of a firing squad is feasible. S. Supreme Court’s two-part test, which requires showing a substantial risk of superadded pain.
” “Counting to 60 or 180 seconds is not a quick exercise, and constitutionally speaking, that timeframe is intolerable given the suffering that would likely take place under Alabama’s nitrogen hypoxia protocol,” the panel stated. Alabama first used nitrogen gas for capital punishment in 2024. Nitrogen has been used in eight executions nationally, seven in Alabama and one in Louisiana.
Alabama’s most recent nitrogen execution took more than 30 minutes to complete. Lee was convicted of two counts of capital murder for killing Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson during a robbery at Jimmy’s Pawnshop on Dec. 12, 1998.
Prosecutors said Lee entered the store with a sawed-off shotgun and shot both victims. A jury voted 7-5 to recommend life imprisonment, but a judge overrode that recommendation and imposed a death sentence. Alabama ended the practice of judicial override in 2017.
The ruling came several hours after a vigil at the Alabama Capitol urging the governor to commute Lee’s sentence to life imprisonment. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall opposed the clemency request, stating, “The people of Alabama have not forgotten Jimmy and Elaine. ” The Alabama Attorney General’s Office did not immediately comment on the appeals court decision.
The state has maintained that the nitrogen method is constitutional. The Rev. Jeff Hood, who served as spiritual adviser at two prior nitrogen executions, said, “For the first time a court has acknowledged what I and so many others have seen with our own eyes.
