UPDATE
Jun 12, 2026 8:02 AM CDT
The Supreme Court refused to lift a lower court's block on an Alabama execution on Thursday, thwarting the state's plan to execute Jeffery Lee with nitrogen gas at 6pm. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch dissented. Lower courts had said the method likely violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, NBC News reports. Jeffery, 49, killed two people in a pawn shop robbery in 1998. Attorney General Steve Marshall slammed the ruling as a "miscarriage of justice." The state is expected to reschedule the execution and use one of the other two methods legal in Alabama, lethal injection and the electric chair.
Jun 11, 2026 9:30 AM CDT
Alabama's push to use nitrogen gas in executions just hit a major roadblock. A divided panel of the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday said the state's nitrogen hypoxia method likely violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment—and that a firing squad would be a less painful option, reports Al.com. The ruling temporarily blocks Alabama from using nitrogen to execute death row inmate Jeffery Lee, whose death had been scheduled between Thursday evening and early Friday.
The judges backed a lower court's finding that the state's gas-mask protocol risks one to three minutes of intense suffering, calling that "constitutionally intolerable." They also dismissed Alabama's argument that setting up a firing squad would be too difficult. Electrocution and lethal injection remain as alternative methods. The state is expected to ask the US Supreme Court to step in.
Lee has been on death row for nearly three decades after being convicted in 2000 of the murder of two people and the attempted murder of a third during a robbery, per NBC News. "Fear not, I am not finished, and just, you know, to me, my faith is everything," the 49-year-old told NBC this week.
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