US Supreme Court blocks nitrogen gas execution in Alabama
The US Supreme Court on Thursday blocked Alabama from executing Jeffery Lee with nitrogen gas, upholding lower court rulings that the method likely violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Legal whiplash: from approval to ban
Alabama's execution of Jeffery Lee using nitrogen gas was on track after a federal district judge initially upheld the state's protocol in late May. But on 8 June, a three-judge panel of the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision, warning that the three minutes it could take for an inmate to lose consciousness is an "intolerable" period of "suffering." One day later, US District Judge Emily Marks, reconsidering her earlier ruling, permanently barred the nitrogen execution, finding it "cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment." Alabama appealed to the Supreme Court for an emergency order to allow the execution to proceed on 11 June.
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.
Supreme Court leaves ban in place
Late Thursday, the US Supreme Court issued a brief, unsigned order denying Alabama's request to vacate the lower court injunction. The vote was 6-3, with Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch indicating they would have allowed the execution. The court provided no written reasoning, typical for emergency rulings.
His jury voted for life. Two courts ruled the method unconstitutional. Today, the Constitution prevailed.
A death row case with a contentious history
Jeffery Lee, 49, was convicted of killing two people during a 1998 pawnshop robbery. At his 2000 sentencing, the jury voted for life imprisonment without parole, but a judge overrode that recommendation and sentenced him to death under a judicial override procedure that Alabama abolished in 2017 without making the change retroactive. Lee's attorneys argued that his execution should not proceed by any method, but they proposed firing squad as an alternative to nitrogen gas should the courts allow the death penalty.
- District Judge Marks upholds nitrogen hypoxia protocol as constitutional.
- 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals reverses, finding protocol likely unconstitutional.
- Marks reconsiders and permanently bars execution by nitrogen gas.
- US Supreme Court denies Alabama's emergency application to lift the injunction.
The nitrogen method controversy
Nitrogen hypoxia, in which a condemned inmate breathes pure nitrogen through a mask until oxygen deprivation causes death, was first used by Alabama in 2024. Since then, the state has carried out seven such executions. Witnesses have described inmates writhing and retching. A group of doctors filed a brief stating the method "necessarily causes inhumane suffering." UN experts have denounced it as cruel and inhumane. The lower court found that the protocol likely causes "severe air hunger and corresponding emotional distress, anxiety, physiological stress, and physical discomfort." Five states — Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma — have authorized nitrogen executions.
What comes next
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall called the ruling a "miscarriage of justice" and said the state is "prepared to do whatever is necessary to see Mr Lee's lawful sentence carried out."
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.
Lee cannot yet be executed by nitrogen, but the state can still seek his execution by lethal injection or the electric chair. Legal observers note that Alabama's push to preserve nitrogen gas as an execution method may force a Supreme Court ruling on its constitutionality, a decision that would bind all death-penalty states.
