In a final effort to stop the execution, Lee’s attorneys and supporters pointed to the jury’s recommendation that he receive life in prison, a sentence later overridden by the trial judge.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama put a man to death by lethal injection Thursday for a 1998 double killing, just three months after a court blocked the state from executing him with nitrogen gas.
Jeffery Lee, 49, was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m. at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, according to state officials. His death marked Alabama’s second execution of the year and the 27th carried out nationwide in 2026.
Lee was convicted in the Dec. 12, 1998, robbery and killings at Jimmy’s Pawn Shop in Orrville, a small community roughly 65 miles west of Montgomery. Shop owner Jimmy Ellis and employee Elaine Thompson were fatally shot. A second employee survived after pretending to be dead.
The execution process began shortly after 6 p.m.
“All is well. I just want to say to my family, I love them. To my brothers on life row. I love them,” Lee said in his final statement.
When the lethal injection began, Lee tightened his fists while strapped to the prison gurney. His spiritual adviser held his feet and appeared to pray. Lee then shut his eyes and showed no sign of opening them again.
Ruling blocked Alabama from using nitrogen gas method
Thursday’s execution came 98 days after Lee received an unusual last-minute reprieve. A judge had ruled that Alabama’s planned use of nitrogen gas would violate the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Lee had initially been set to die by nitrogen gas in June, but the execution was called off following that ruling. The decision dealt a setback to Alabama, which began using the nitrogen hypoxia execution method in 2024.
The Alabama attorney general’s office quickly moved to secure another execution date, this time requesting that Lee be put to death by lethal injection.
Lee’s attorneys and supporters made an unsuccessful bid for clemency, noting the jury in his case had made a recommendation of life imprisonment, which the judge overrode. His attorneys also argued in court that the state should not be legally allowed to switch execution methods.
A jury voted 7-5 to give Lee a sentence of life imprisonment; however, a judge overrode that and sentenced him to death.
In 2017, Alabama abolished judicial override and stopped allowing judges to change juries’ sentencing decision in capital cases. But the law was not retroactive. Supporters of Lee’s clemency bid held a rally Tuesday outside the Alabama Capitol under the banner, “HONOR THE JURY.”
Lee’s attorney’s argued that the state should not have been able to swiftly switch to lethal injection. Lee in 2018 dropped a lawsuit challenging the state’s lethal injection process after the state agreed he would be executed by nitrogen.
Two killed in 1998 pawnshop robbery
The surviving witness testified that Lee entered the store, asked to see wedding rings and said he would be back after getting money from his grandmother. Lee returned a short time later with a sawed-off shotgun and shot Ellis, Thompson and the other employee. The surviving witness fell to the floor, pretending to be dead, and called 911 once Lee left the store.
Ellis, a singer whose voice resembled Elvis Presley’s, had gained a national following for a time as an Elvis impersonator. He performed as the masked singer “Orion” and was the subject of a 2015 documentary.
Lee was convicted in 2000 of capital murder and attempted murder.
Supreme Court turns back stay request
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday denied Lee’s request to stay the execution to consider whether the state could make the switch to lethal injection. Justices turned back the request without comment. The ruling came about six hours before the scheduled lethal injection.
Lee filed a lawsuit in 2016 challenging the state’s lethal injection protocol. After Alabama authorized nitrogen as an execution method, Lee selected it as his preferred method. He agreed to dismiss the lethal injection lawsuit in 2018 because the state agreed that “if he is to be executed, defendants will carry out that execution by nitrogen hypoxia.”
Lee’s attorneys argued the state is bound by the terms of that agreement to not use lethal injection. They said the state could revise its nitrogen protocol to make it constitutional or use a firing squad.
“I feel like they owe me their word because they came into agreement in 2018 that wouldn’t do what they are trying to do now,” Lee said in audio clips released by his team.
The state attorney general’s office asked the high court to let the execution proceed, arguing that nothing precludes the switch to lethal injection.
“An unpunished murder is an intrinsic and ongoing harm to those interests and to the rule of law. Nearly twenty-eight years is decades too long,” lawyers with the attorney general’s office wrote.
For decades, lethal injection was the generally preferred U.S. execution method until problems procuring and administering the drugs led states including Alabama to consider alternatives.
Lethal injection remains Alabama’s primary execution method. But in 2024, the state began carrying out some executions using nitrogen gas, which involves replacing breathable air with gas through a respirator mask, causing death from lack of oxygen. Nitrogen has now been used in seven executions in Alabama and one in Louisiana.