{"id":851055,"date":"2026-09-17T14:56:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/851055\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T14:56:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:56:17","slug":"alabama-set-to-execute-jeffery-lee-by-lethal-injection-after-nitrogen-execution-is-blocked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/851055\/","title":{"rendered":"Alabama set to execute Jeffery Lee by lethal injection after nitrogen execution is blocked"},"content":{"rendered":"

A rare move by the Supreme Court prevented Alabama from executing prisoner Jeffery Lee<\/a> with nitrogen gas in June. But if Lee believed the surprise ruling would afford him a reprieve from the execution chamber, he was wrong.<\/p>\n

Alabama intends to put him to death Thursday evening by lethal injection, setting up a legal challenge because he didn\u2019t choose such a method and the state initially agreed not to use it.<\/p>\n

Barring another last-minute court intervention, Lee, 49, is scheduled to be executed for the fatal shootings of two people in a 1998 pawnshop robbery near Selma: store owner Jimmy Ellis, an acclaimed Elvis Presley impersonator<\/a>, and his ex-wife Elaine Thompson, who also worked at the store. Lee\u2019s lawyers insist he isn\u2019t trying to permanently halt his execution but wants the state to apply the method he chose in a way that doesn\u2019t violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.<\/p>\n

Lee has also asked to die by firing squad as an alternative, although Alabama doesn\u2019t authorize it.<\/p>\n

\"JefferyJeffery Lee was sentenced to death for the fatal shootings of two people during a 1998 robbery. Alabama Department of Correction via AP<\/p>\n

In 2018, Lee agreed to be put to death by nitrogen hypoxia, in which a person breathes the gas through a mask apparatus and is deprived of oxygen. He elected it years before Alabama had even developed a nitrogen protocol. As part of a legal settlement, Alabama swore off executing him via lethal injection, which was the subject of a state review<\/a> in 2022 after past executions failed but remains the primary execution method.<\/p>\n

Since early 2024, when the state pioneered the use of nitrogen gas<\/a>, seven inmates have been put to death in that manner.<\/p>\n

Witnesses at those various executions have described prisoners\u2019 heaving for long periods and convulsing and writhing against their restraints on the gurney.<\/p>\n

The family of Kenneth Smith, the first person<\/a> who was executed by nitrogen, watched from the execution chamber at the state prison in Atmore as Smith was denied oxygen. The execution took 15 minutes, far longer than the state had predicted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the awfullest thing I\u2019ve ever seen in my whole life,\u201d Smith\u2019s son, Steven Tiggleman, said Wednesday. \u201cYou got a scuba mask strapped to your face, and they\u2019re suffocating you to death.\u201d <\/p>\n

During the execution of Anthony Boyd<\/a>, who in October was the last person put to death with nitrogen gas in Alabama, it appeared to take longer than usual, witnesses said; one media witness reported<\/a> Boyd gasping for air more than 225 times.<\/p>\n

The Rev. Jeff Hood, who served as spiritual adviser to Smith and Boyd, said their executions weren\u2019t as sanitized as people were led to believe. <\/p>\n

\u201cNitrogen doesn\u2019t put a man to sleep. It makes him drown in a room full of air,\u201d he said Wednesday. \u201cNitrogen hypoxia is dead because of Jeffery Lee.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drawing from the previous nitrogen executions, Lee last year sued to stop Alabama\u2019s use of nitrogen in his case, arguing that it induces \u201cconscious suffocation\u201d that \u201cis cruel and unusual because it superadds terror and pain during the execution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case moved through the courts, with both district and appeals courts ruling in Lee\u2019s favor. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that nitrogen executions most likely violate the Eighth Amendment\u2019s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.<\/p>\n

The state appealed, but the Supreme Court upheld<\/a> the lower courts\u2019 rulings that block Alabama from using its nitrogen hypoxia protocol. The justices, in a 6-3 split, gave no reason<\/a> for the decision, which was notable because the high court seldom stops<\/a> executions.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

State Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement at the time that he was \u201cprepared to do whatever is necessary to see Mr. Lee\u2019s lawful sentence carried out.\u201d U.S. District Judge Emily Marks agreed that Alabama could execute Lee by lethal injection because the federal injunction involves only its nitrogen protocol.<\/p>\n

\u200b\u201cAfter losing twice in federal court, Alabama now revives the very lethal injection method it promised to abandon,\u201d Lee\u2019s lawyers said in a statement after Gov. Kay Ivey set a new execution date for this month. \u201cAlabama isn\u2019t complying with the Constitution. It\u2019s trying to outrun it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee\u2019s legal team has gone back to the Supreme Court to stop his execution via lethal injection. In its response, the state said his lawsuits created \u201ca change in essential facts\u201d that should allow corrections officials to return to using lethal injection.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is Lee who has changed positions,\u201d the state argued. \u201cHe challenged the very method he elected. Now, having won permanent injunctive relief, he insists that the State must either \u2018revise the Protocol\u2019 (precisely how, he does not specify) or \u2018proceed by firing squad\u2019 (unauthorized in Alabama) to carry out his judicial execution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proponents of capital punishment may point to the varied litigation filed by Lee as nothing more than a delay tactic, said Austin Sarat, a political science and law professor at Amherst College in Massachusetts who writes about botched executions. But Alabama, he added, also has the ability to revise its nitrogen protocol rather than use a method to execute Lee that officials previously agreed was off the table. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a possibility that Alabama can\u2019t make it work,\u201d Sarat said of a constitutionally sound nitrogen hypoxia protocol. \u201cBut you offered a choice. When we make a contract and enter into an agreement, the whole purpose is to bind us to perform against all future possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marshall\u2019s office didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment Wednesday. He has previously said he would continue to seek justice for the victims and their families.<\/p>\n

\"JimmyJimmy Ellis, a former Elvis Presley impersonator, was killed in his pawnshop in Orrville, Ala., in 1998.Courtesy Office of the Alabama Attorney General<\/p>\n

Lee was 21 when he entered Jimmy\u2019s Pawn Shop on Dec. 12, 1998, with his brother and cousin, saying he was looking at wedding rings for his girlfriend. He browsed the display, then left. Minutes later, authorities said, he re-entered with a sawed-off shotgun, fatally shot Ellis and Thompson and wounded another employee, Helen King.<\/p>\n

In the 1970s and \u201980s, Ellis gained notoriety as a mask-wearing, country-singing Elvis impersonator who went by the stage name Orion. His life and death were covered in the 2015 documentary \u201cOrion: The Man Who Would Be King<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the film, Helen King described how she pretended to be dead on the floor as Lee fumbled with the register. \u201cI don\u2019t know why somebody would do that to somebody so nice as Jimmy,\u201d she said. \u201cHe made you feel like you\u2019re family.\u201d<\/p>\n

A member of Ellis\u2019 family declined to comment this week about Lee\u2019s planned execution.<\/p>\n

Lee was found guilty in 2000. While a majority of jurors voted that he get life without parole, the judge instead sentenced him to death in a practice known as \u201cjudicial override,\u201d which Alabama banned in 2017. Previous cases like Lee\u2019s weren\u2019t included.<\/p>\n

His supporters have called on Ivey to commute his sentence, but she has said she wouldn\u2019t grant Lee clemency.<\/p>\n

Lee has been on death row for nearly three decades and has expressed remorse for his actions. He has told NBC News<\/a> that he has found redemption through his Christian faith.<\/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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A rare move by the Supreme Court prevented Alabama from executing prisoner Jeffery Lee with nitrogen gas in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":851056,"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-851055","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\/851055","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=851055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/851056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}