Overview
- Alabama has set Jeffery Lee to be executed by lethal injection on Thursday evening, Sept. 17, after courts barred the state’s nitrogen hypoxia protocol.
- Lee chose nitrogen hypoxia in a 2018 court settlement in which the state agreed not to use lethal injection for his execution.
- Federal judges and the 11th Circuit found constitutional problems with Alabama’s nitrogen procedure, and the U.S. Supreme Court left that block in place.
- After the block, the attorney general’s office asked for a new execution date and argued the state can revert to lethal injection; Lee’s lawyers filed an emergency petition with the Supreme Court seeking a stay and to enforce the earlier agreement.
- The dispute follows seven Alabama nitrogen executions that witnesses described as prolonged gasping and convulsions, and it revives broader concerns about judicial override sentencing and the search for acceptable execution methods.