Supreme Court nixes Alabama request for nitrogen execution, which lower
court ruled unconstitutional
[June 12, 2026]
By KIM CHANDLER
ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama man facing the death penalty by nitrogen
gas was spared Thursday as the U.S. Supreme Court refused to set aside a
lower-court ruling that found the method is unconstitutionally cruel,
issuing a brief order that came well after the hour originally planned
to initiate Jeffery Lee’s execution.
The justices decided not to lift an injunction blocking Alabama from
carrying out what would have been the nation’s ninth execution by
nitrogen gas, rejecting a last-minute legal battle by the state as it
sought to carry out the sentence in the evening. A spokesperson for the
Alabama Department of Corrections said the execution was off for the
evening and the state would not try another method.
The high court voted 6-3 and did not explain its reasoning. Three of the
conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch
— said they would grant Alabama’s request to lift the injunction and let
the execution go forward.
In a statement the legal team for Lee, 49, hailed the decision and noted
that his jury had voted for a sentence of life, which a judge overruled.
“His jury voted for life. Two courts ruled the method unconstitutional.
Today, the Constitution prevailed,” the statement said. “Now Governor
Ivey can finish what the jury started: restore the jury’s verdict of
life without parole.”
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall promised the families of the
victims that authorities will continue to seek justice, saying in a
statement: “The State is prepared to do whatever is necessary to see Mr.
Lee’s lawful sentence carried out.”
“Tonight’s ruling is a miscarriage of justice, not for us, but for Jimmy
Ellis and Elaine Thompson, who Jeffery Lee brutally and senselessly
murdered and left on the floor of their place of business,” Marshall
said. Tonight I am also keeping their families in mind, many of whom
were prepared to witness the final act of justice be served.”
Prison officials said Lee did not request a final meal Thursday but had
potato chips, Skittles, water and a Sprite in the hours ahead of his
possible execution.
The ruling was at least a temporary, rare victory for opponents of
capital punishment in a state that has had one of the busiest death
chambers in the country. And it capped an extraordinary legal
back-and-forth over the humaneness of nitrogen gas as an execution
method.
Legal challenge wended its way through the courts
Lee filed a lawsuit challenging Alabama’s protocol as a violation of the
constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and U.S. District
Judge Emily Marks ruled the method constitutional in May.
But a three-judge panel from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
reversed her decision Monday, saying the three minutes it could take for
an inmate to lose awareness is an “intolerable” time frame “given the
suffering that would likely take place under Alabama’s nitrogen hypoxia
protocol.”
Marks reevaluated the case and ruled again Tuesday saying Lee had shown
“that the protocol constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation
of the Eighth Amendment.” The state appealed to the Supreme Court.
“If that ruling stands, it would be unprecedented in American history.
Not only does it portend the first-ever permanent ban on a legislatively
enacted method, but it would expand the concept of cruelty well beyond
the bounds of the Eighth Amendment,” lawyers with the Alabama Attorney
General’s Office wrote.
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Lee’s lawyers asked the high court to keep the execution on hold,
saying in a response that Alabama was asking it to intervene at the
eleventh hour “to allow an execution that has been found
unconstitutional to proceed.”
The decision blocks Lee's execution in the immediate future, but it
is unclear how long the reprieve will last. The state maintains that
nitrogen is constitutional, and the lower-court order blocks only
that method and other means of execution such as lethal injection
and the electric chair, both of which are authorized in Alabama.
Nitrogen executions introduced in the state 2 years ago
Alabama began using nitrogen gas to carry out some executions in
2024. The method involves strapping a respirator to a person’s face
and replacing breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death
from lack of oxygen.
Nitrogen has been used in eight executions in the United States —
seven times in Alabama and once in Louisiana. Lee was scheduled to
be the ninth.
During the previous Alabama nitrogen executions, the inmates shook,
pulled at the restraints and exhibited labored breathing. During the
state’s last execution by nitrogen gas, 30 minutes elapsed between
Anthony Boyd exhibiting signs of being impacted by the gas and state
officials closing the curtain to the viewing room to signal the
execution was complete.
The state has maintained that the method is constitutional and
causes no more suffering than other execution methods.
Lee, who is currently housed at William C. Holman Correctional
Facility in Atmore, was convicted of two counts of capital murder
for killing Ellis and Thompson while robbing a pawnshop on Dec. 12,
1998.
Prosecutors said Lee entered Jimmy’s Pawnshop with a sawed-off
shotgun and shot Ellis, the owner, and Thompson, an employee.
Alabama no longer allows judicial overrides in capital cases
A jury voted 7-5 to give Lee a sentence of life imprisonment.
However a judge overrode that and sentenced him to death.
Alabama ended the practice of judicial override in 2017 and no
longer allows a judge to disregard a jury’s sentencing decision in
death penalty cases.
Bestselling author John Grisham called on Gov. Kay Ivey to honor the
jury's decision and commute Lee's sentence to life without parole.
“The practice of a judge overriding a jury was declared
unconstitutional and so indefensible that Alabama itself abolished
it in 2017,” Grisham said in a statement. “Jeffery Lee’s jury made
its decision, the Alabama Legislature later agreed that juries, not
judges, should decide life or death sentences.”
Ivey, for her part, said Thursday night: “While I am disappointed
the Supreme Court did not allow the state to proceed with Lee’s
chosen method of execution, I remain committed to ensuring that
justice is ultimately served for his victims.”
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