Montgomery, Alaa.. The state of Alabama is waging a last-minute legal battle to execute a man Nitrogen gas On Thursday night, she asked the US Supreme Court to overturn a judge’s findings that the method violates the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
A federal judge on Tuesday ruled Alabama’s nitrogen protocol unconstitutional and blocked the state from using it to execute Jeffrey Lee, 49. The Alabama Attorney General’s Office is appealing the decision.
The outcome of the eleventh-hour legal battle will determine whether Lee’s execution by nitrogen gas continues Thursday night. It could also help determine the future of a controversial execution method that Alabama begins using in 2024.
“While Alabama continues to defend its execution protocol in the courts, the governor remains prepared to move forward with the planned execution,” Mike Lewis, a spokesman for Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, wrote in an email.
The execution method involves strapping a respirator to the person’s face and replacing breathable air with it Pure nitrogen gasWhich causes death due to lack of oxygen. Nitrogen has been used in eight executions in the United States, seven times in Alabama and once in Louisiana. Lee was to be the ninth person to die by nitrogen.
U.S. District Judge Emily Marks ruled Tuesday, following an appeals court Her primary result reversed And that the method was constitutional, which Lee showed by “the preponderance of the evidence indicating that the protocol constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.” In a 2-1 decision Wednesday night, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Alabama’s request to stay the ruling. The court previously said the three minutes it would take for a prisoner to lose consciousness is an “intolerable” time frame, “given the suffering likely to be caused under Alabama’s nitrogen hypoxia protocol.”
A spokesperson for the Alabama Attorney General’s Office confirmed Wednesday night that the state is appealing to the Supreme Court. The court has never ruled that a specific method of implementation violates the Constitution.
This case has once again highlighted the way nitrogen is implemented and the sharp controversies over its use.
During previous nitrogen executions in Alabama, inmates shivered, pulled on restraints, and showed difficulty breathing at the beginning of the execution. During the state’s last nitrogen gas execution, 30 minutes elapsed between Anthony Boyd showing signs of being affected by the gas and state officials closing the curtain on the viewing room to signal the execution was complete.
The state confirmed that this method is constitutional and does not cause more suffering than other methods of execution.
“If nitrogen hypoxia violates the Eighth Amendment because of the risk of emotional distress and distress, then so must all other methods of execution, many of which carry inherent risks of actual physical pain,” the state’s lawyers wrote in a court filing Wednesday for the 11th Circuit.
Lee’s lawyers said Alabama is trying to move forward with an execution method that courts have found unconstitutional. His supporters urged Ivey to commute his sentence to life in prison, the punishment recommended by jurors in his trial.
“Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall wants to execute Jeffrey Lee under a death sentence that the jury rejected using a nitrogen gas method that two federal courts have ruled unconstitutional. This execution is simply too flawed to proceed,” Lee’s lawyers said in a statement.
“We remain hopeful that Governor Ivey will intervene,” they added.
The jury convicted Lee of two counts of capital murder for the deaths of Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson during a pawn shop robbery on Dec. 12, 1998. Prosecutors said Lee entered Jimmy’s pawn shop with a sawed-off shotgun and shot Ellis, the store owner, and Thompson, the store employee.
The jury voted 7 to 5 that Lee should be sentenced to life in prison. However, the judge overrode that recommendation and sentenced Lee to death. Alabama in 2017 He ended the practice Judicial override The judge is no longer allowed to ignore the jury’s decision to render a verdict in death penalty cases. The state law that eliminated judicial override was not retroactive.