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Supreme Court Blocks Alabama Nitrogen Execution
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday declined Alabama's request to lift a lower-court injunction, leaving in place a ruling that found the state's nitrogen hypoxia protocol unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. The 6-3 order prevents the scheduled execution of Jeffery Lee.
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday declined Alabama's request to proceed with a scheduled execution using nitrogen gas. The 6-3 order left in place a lower-court ruling that found the method unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. The decision blocked what would have been the nation's ninth execution by nitrogen hypoxia.
Alabama had asked the justices to lift an injunction that stopped the execution of Jeffery Lee, 49.
Background on the Case Lee was convicted of two counts of capital murder for a 1998 pawnshop robbery in which two people were killed. A jury voted 7-5 for life imprisonment, but a judge overrode that recommendation and imposed a death sentence. Alabama ended judicial override in 2017. Lee has been on death row for more than two decades and is housed at William C. Holman Correctional Facility.
A federal district judge initially upheld Alabama's nitrogen protocol in May. A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling Monday, finding the time required for loss of consciousness created an intolerable risk of suffering.
The district judge then ruled again Tuesday that the protocol violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Alabama appealed to the Supreme Court. Three conservative justices dissented from the order and said they would have allowed the execution to proceed.
A spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Corrections said the execution was off for the evening and the state would not attempt another method that night.
“His jury voted for life. Two courts ruled the method unconstitutional. Today, the Constitution prevailed.”
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the state remains prepared to carry out the sentence by other means. The state introduced nitrogen hypoxia in 2024. The method has been used eight times in the United States, seven of them in Alabama. In prior nitrogen executions, witnesses reported inmates shaking and showing labored breathing for extended periods.
