The Supreme Court late Thursday denied Alabama’s request to execute a man using nitrogen gas after two lower court rulings blocked the method and found it violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.The high court’s decision came after the state filed for an emergency order just hours ahead of the execution of Jeffery Lee, 49, scheduled for 6 p.m.Thursday local time.Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch noted their dissent and would have granted the state’s request to overturn the lower courts.Lee, who was convicted of murdering two people in a 1998 pawnshop robbery, is effectively spared from being put to death via nitrogen, but the state can still attempt other methods and it’s unclear how quickly it would seek viable alternatives.Jeffery Lee.
Albama Dept.of CorrectionsThe state and Lee’s legal team did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Whether or not the state could execute Lee, who has been on death row for more than 25 years, by nitrogen gas was the question at the heart of his legal challenge that came to a head this week.On Monday, a federal district judge in Alabama initially found the method was constitutional.
Lee’s legal team appealed, and the 11th U.S.Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the opinion, saying nitrogen executions likely violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and ordered the district court to rule on the feasibility of a firing squad execution.When both the district and appeals courts ruled in favor of Lee, the state filed an application for an emergency order to the Supreme Court.
The high court has previously upheld other methods of execution throughout the country, including lethal injection, electrocution and firing squad, but nitrogen gas has been the subject of intense litigation since Alabama became the first state in the nation to begin us...