Nitrogen Gas Execution

Long before Christa Pike was brought into Tennessee’s execution chamber, prison leaders reviewed and approved a backup plan detailing exactly what to do if the first attempt at lethal injection failed. Alabama reportedly has its own “plan B” procedures if a lethal injection fails. But, after a series of botched executions, the state switched to nitrogen gas suffocation, although the constitutionality and acceptance of the process reportedly remains an issue.

Alabama executed a man by lethal injection for a 1998 double murder, three months after a judge’s ruling blocked the state from putting him to death with nitrogen gas. Jeffrey Lee was also sentenced to death under a state policy abolished by Governor Kay Ivey in 2017. The Alabama Public Radio news team focused on the state’s “judicial override” practice, where juries could ask for life in prison for a convicted killer, but the judge could veto that decision and impose death. Lee was one of those cases, before Ivey ended the policy.

Alabama is set to execute a man Thursday night via lethal injection, three months after a judge's ruling blocked the state from putting him to death with nitrogen gas. Jeffery Lee, 49, is scheduled to receive an injection beginning at 6 p.m. at south Alabama's William C. Holman Correctional Facility for killing two people during a 1998 pawnshop robbery in rural Dallas County.

Tennessee and Oklahoma put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other Thursday and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men by lethal injection in one day for the first time since 2010. The Tennessee man was executed for killing a motel maid in 1985 and the Oklahoma man for killing his girlfriend in 2003. In Alabama, a man was put to death for killing a 5-year-old girl he had offered to pay her mother to abuse.

Three men in Tennessee, Alabama and Oklahoma are scheduled for lethal injection Thursday in a rare convergence of executions on the same day in the U.S. A man in Tennessee faces execution for killing a motel maid. An Oklahoma man is scheduled to die for killing his girlfriend. And an Alabama man will be put to death after dropping all his appeals in the killing of a 5-year-old girl he paid her mother to abuse.

The fate of Alabama death row inmate Jeffrey Lee remains in limbo following actions by the U.S. Supreme Court and a federal judge in Montgomery. This situation appears to be spilling over to other states and the debate over capital punishment.

Alabama on Friday asked permission to execute a man by lethal injection after court rulings blocked the use of nitrogen gas and cast doubt on the future of the state’s gas method. The Alabama Attorney General’s office filed a motion asking the Alabama Supreme Court to authorize a death warrant for Jeffery Lee, this time using lethal injection. The request came less than 24 hours after the state was thwarted in plans to use nitrogen to execute Lee, who was convicted of killing two people during a 1998 robbery.

Less than one day after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to allow Alabama to use nitrogen gas to execute Jeffrey Lee for a 1998 double homicide, his legal team spoke out over Alabama’s former policy called “judicial override.” The loophole allowed the judge in Lee’s case to ignore his jury’s recommendation of life in prison and impose a death sentence. Alabama Public Radio focused on this controversial policy in its 2016 national award-winning investigation titled ‘…and justice for all.” Four months later, Governor Kay Ivey signed legislation ending “judicial override.”

An Alabama man facing the death penalty by nitrogen gas was spared Thursday as the U.S. Supreme Court refused to set aside a lower-court ruling that found the method is unconstitutionally cruel, issuing a brief order that came well after the hour originally planned to initiate Jeffery Lee’s execution.

Alabama is waging a last-minute legal fight to execute a man with nitrogen gas on Thursday night, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to set aside a judge's findings that the method violates the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that Alabama’s nitrogen protocol is unconstitutional and blocked the state from using it to execute Jeffery Lee, 49. The Alabama attorney general’s office is appealing the decision.