In a significant legal development, a federal judge has permanently prohibited the state of Alabama from executing death row inmate Jeffrey Lee using nitrogen gas. This decision was based on the grounds that such an execution method contravenes the US Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
US District Judge Emily C. Marks delivered this ruling on Tuesday, just hours after an appeals court overturned her earlier decision which had deemed the controversial method constitutional. Consequently, the state is now barred from using nitrogen gas to carry out the execution of 49-year-old Jeffrey Lee, who was initially slated for execution on Thursday.
The ruling followed the appeals court’s conclusion that the nitrogen gas method posed “a substantial risk of serious harm.” A panel of three judges from the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals highlighted that the estimated three minutes it might take for an inmate to lose consciousness was an “intolerable” period, considering the likely suffering under Alabama’s nitrogen hypoxia protocol.
In her ruling, Judge Marks noted that the state could resort to an alternative execution method preferred by Lee, which is a firing squad. This decision aligns with the legal requirement that inmates contesting execution methods must propose an alternative.
Judge Marks stated, “Therefore, Lee has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that the protocol constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.” This underscores the constitutional safeguard against inhumane treatment, further shaping the discourse on execution methods in the United States.
Marks’ order blocks only the state from executing Lee by nitrogen gas. The state has two other authorized execution methods: lethal injection and the electric chair. She said Lee is “not entitled to an injunction barring the state from executing him using one of those methods.”
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office is appealing the decision, according to a new court filing. Alabama officials have maintained that the method is constitutional.
The issue appears likely bound for the US Supreme Court, which has never ruled a state’s execution method to be unconstitutional.
“Were Alabama to adopt firing squad as a method of execution, that method would likely be challenged as well. Indeed, there is likely no method — no matter how humane — that would be immune to constitutional challenge. But the Constitution does not guarantee a painless death, and human life cannot be purposefully extinguished without some risk of pain. The Court, the condemned, and the State must all confront that sobering reality,” Marks wrote in her ruling.
Alabama began using nitrogen gas for executions in January 2024, when convicted killer Kenneth Eugene Smith became the first person in the country to be executed using that method.
The execution method, which involves strapping a respirator onto the inmate’s face and replacing breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death by lack of oxygen, has been criticized by opponents as inhumane and torturous.
“Three minutes of conscious suffocation is torturous. If that doesn’t violate the constitution, let alone international law, nothing would,” Bernard Harcourt, a professor at Columbia University Law School and who represents one of several other Alabama inmates challenging the method as unconstitutional, told The Associated Press.
Nitrogen has been used in eight executions in the US, with seven of them in Alabama and one in Louisiana. Lee was set to become the ninth person executed with nitrogen before Marks’ order.
Opponents of the death penalty and critics of the controversial execution method praised Marks’ ruling on Tuesday.
“I pray that we are witnessing the collapse of this horrific method nationwide,” said the Rev. Jeff Hood, who served as spiritual adviser at two nitrogen executions.
Lee is being held at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore for his conviction of two counts of capital murder for killing Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson while robbing a pawnshop on Dec. 12, 1998. Prosecutors said Lee entered Jimmy’s Pawnshop with a sawed-off shotgun and shot Ellis, who was the owner of the store, and Thompson, an employee at the business.
A jury voted 7-5 that Lee should be sentenced to life imprisonment, but a judge overrode that recommendation and sentenced him to death.
Alabama later ended the ability of a judge to disregard a jury’s sentencing decision in death penalty cases.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.