{"id":696746,"date":"2026-06-11T01:14:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T01:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/696746\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T01:14:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T01:14:13","slug":"jeffery-lee-breathes-sigh-of-relief-after-alabamas-nitrogen-execution-is-deemed-unconstitutional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/696746\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeffery Lee breathes \u2018sigh of relief\u2019 after Alabama\u2019s nitrogen execution is deemed unconstitutional"},"content":{"rendered":"

A death row prisoner whose planned execution Thursday was suddenly halted became emotional when he learned that a federal court had ruled<\/a> Alabama\u2019s use of nitrogen gas violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s like an expected sigh of relief in one aspect, and then you still got to stay and maintain your focus and continue to fight,\u201d Jeffery Lee, who has been on death row for nearly three decades, said by phone Tuesday. He spoke from the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, moments after a district court judge agreed to stop his execution.<\/p>\n

\u201cFear not, I am not finished, and just, you know, to me, my faith is everything,\u201d said Lee, 49.<\/p>\n

\"JefferyJeffery Lee. Albama Dept. of Corrections<\/p>\n

Despite the ruling, his fate remains uncertain: State Attorney General Steve Marshall has filed an appeal, most likely sending the case up to the Supreme Court, which has previously sided with Alabama by allowing nitrogen executions to proceed after last-minute appeals. Marshall\u2019s office declined to comment Wednesday. <\/p>\n

Lee was scheduled to become the ninth person in the country put to death via nitrogen hypoxia, which was pioneered by Alabama in 2024 and entails breathing pure nitrogen through a mask while being denied oxygen. Seven of those executions took place in Alabama<\/a>; one was carried out in Louisiana<\/a>. Alabama\u2019s primary method of execution remains lethal injection, which it last carried out<\/a> in April 2025, but sourcing the drugs has been difficult<\/a> in the last several years. <\/p>\n

Lee filed a lawsuit challenging nitrogen use in August.<\/p>\n

During a three-day bench trial in February, U.S. District Judge Emily Marks heard testimony that nitrogen executions cause \u201csevere air hunger\u201d for the condemned, leading to \u201cextreme emotional distress, panic, anxiety, and fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIndeed, many people find air hunger \u2018worse than pain\u2019 because it is associated with the fear of dying,\u201d she wrote in an opinion in May. <\/p>\n

Even so, Marks initially upheld the method as constitutional.<\/p>\n

But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned her decision Monday and ordered the district court to review Lee\u2019s request to be executed by firing squad, instead. In response, Marks permanently blocked <\/a>the state Tuesday from executing Lee by nitrogen.<\/p>\n

In his appeal, Marshall pointed to challenges the state would face by implementing the firing squad \u2014 including finding five willing shooters and the possibility that any shots fired could miss a target placed over the heart, resulting in more pain for the condemned. <\/p>\n

\u201cAn inmate facing the firing squad might be quickly dispatched or, like Mikal Mahdi in South Carolina<\/a> last year, he might suffer the pain of being shot multiple times in the chest due to poor aim,\u201d the appeal said. <\/p>\n

Witnesses to previous nitrogen executions in Alabama have described the condemned in apparent agony. They watched as prisoners struggled against the restraints<\/a> that held them to the gurney while they gasped for air. <\/p>\n

A media witness to the last nitrogen execution in October described a prolonged process; <\/a>the prisoner, Anthony Boyd, was not declared dead until 30 minutes after the air started flowing. <\/p>\n

Lee expressed grief over the experiences of those who were executed before him through a method that has now been found unconstitutionally cruel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was raised up around those guys, because when I first got to the row, I was 23 years old, just turning 24,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat we heard they went through, man, it\u2019s like losing a family member.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JimmyJimmy Ellis was shot and killed in Jimmy\u2019s Pawn Shop in Orrville, Ala., in 1998.Courtesy Office of the Alabama Attorney General<\/p>\n

Lee was found guilty in 2000 of the murders of Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson and the attempted murder of Helen King during a robbery west of Montgomery.<\/p>\n

On Dec. 12, 1998, Lee visited Jimmy\u2019s Pawn Shop with his brother and cousin, saying he was looking at wedding rings for his girlfriend. After browsing, he said, he didn\u2019t have money on him and left. Minutes later, he re-entered the store with a sawed-off shotgun and shot and killed Ellis and Thompson and wounded King, authorities said.<\/p>\n

A jury sentenced Lee to life without parole, but a judge set aside that decision<\/a> and sentenced him to death, a practice known as \u201cjudicial override\u201d that was outlawed in Alabama in 2017.<\/p>\n

\"ElaineElaine Thompson was murdered at Jimmy\u2019s Pawn Shop in Orrville, Ala., in 1998.Courtesy Office of the Alabama Attorney General<\/p>\n

Lee has expressed remorse<\/a> for the slayings and said he believes he has found redemption in the years since then, through his devotion to Christianity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t fear dying, and nothing like that, because I know where I would be,\u201d he said, referring to heaven.<\/p>\n

He said he hopes his legal win will prevent others from being executed with nitrogen.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod \u2014 he\u2019s not finished,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s still working, not only on my behalf, but on the other brothers\u2019 behalf that are still facing this situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the ruling has blocked nitrogen gas executions in Alabama, the future of the method will remain unclear until the Supreme Court settles the issue, said Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Policy Project, an independent research program, and a special counsel at the nonprofit law firm Phillips Black, which provides post-conviction legal representation. The Supreme Court last denied an Alabama prisoner\u2019s request<\/a> to halt his nitrogen execution in October.<\/p>\n

Dunham said that if Lee\u2019s case ends up before the Supreme Court and the state attorney general gets his way, the lower court\u2019s ruling could be upended. That would mean Lee\u2019s execution could still move forward.<\/p>\n

Alternatively, he said, the high court could allow it to remain on hold while justices review the lower court\u2019s decision during their next session.<\/p>\n

Another long-shot possibility, Dunham said, is that Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey commutes Lee\u2019s sentence to life in prison. While she has overseen 25 executions over her nine years as governor, she has twice commuted death row inmates\u2019 sentences, most recently in March<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But a spokesperson for Ivey said Wednesday that the state\u2019s intentions with Lee have not changed. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs Alabama continues to defend its execution protocol in the courts, the governor remains prepared to move forward with the planned execution,\u201d the spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n

No matter what happens, Dunham said, the federal court\u2019s ruling that nitrogen gas executions are unconstitutional remains significant.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey looked at the evidence to determine a judicial finding of fact that validates what critics of the death penalty have been saying about how torturous gas executions are,\u201d he said. \u201cWhether or not it\u2019s upheld on the law won\u2019t affect that fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rev. Jeff Hood, the spiritual adviser for two of the men who were executed in Alabama with nitrogen gas, called the method \u201chorrific.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time a court has acknowledged what I and so many others have seen with our own eyes,\u201d he said. \u201cNitrogen executions are a unique form of horror.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alabama lists two other methods in its execution protocol: lethal injection and electrocution. In her opinion Tuesday, Marks said that her ruling may not spare Lee from either of those methods or the the firing squad should Alabama decide to legalize it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Constitution does not guarantee a painless death, and human life cannot be purposefully extinguished without some risk of pain,\u201d Marks wrote. \u201cThe Court, the condemned, and the State must all confront that sobering reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

But attorney MiAngel Cody, a member of Lee\u2019s legal team, said she believes Lee\u2019s execution, at least via nitrogen gas, \u201cis too flawed to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe remain hopeful that Governor Ivey will grant clemency,\u201d Cody said in a statement Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A death row prisoner whose planned execution Thursday was suddenly halted became emotional when he learned that a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-696746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}