Alabama Will Execute Jeffery Lee On Thursday Evening
Jeffery Lee’s execution has been subject to several controversies, including Alabama initially trying to execute him with nitrogen gas.
Black News 
Following several legal battles, Alabama is set to execute Jeffery Lee on Thursday evening.
According to AP, Jeffery Lee will be executed via lethal injection at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility at 6 p.m. on Thursday. Lee was convicted in 2000 for killing famed Elvis impersonator Jimmy Ellis at a pawn shop he owned, as well as employee Elaine Thompson.
Despite the jury voting 7-5 for Lee to receive life without parole, the judge overruled their recommendation and sentenced him to death.
Lee has spent the last 26 years on death row and initially agreed in 2018 to be executed via nitrogen gas before Alabama even had the means to conduct an execution through that process.
NBC News reports that the use of nitrogen gas in executions has gained controversy since Alabama began using it in 2024. The state has put seven people to death using nitrogen gas, and witnesses to those executions have said it’s a disturbing process. The family of Kenneth Smith, the first man executed using nitrogen gas, said it was a prolonged experience that took 15 minutes longer than expected.
“It was the awfullest thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life,” Smith’s son, Steven Tiggleman, said Wednesday. “You got a scuba mask strapped to your face, and they’re suffocating you to death.”
As a result of how those executions turned out, Lee sued the state last year, arguing that the method causes “conscious suffocation” that “is cruel and unusual because it superadds terror and pain during the execution.” Lee’s case moved through several district and appeals courts, all of which ruled in Lee’s favor.
After the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that nitrogen gas executions likely violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, Alabama appealed the case to the Supreme Court. In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s blocks, pushing Lee’s execution back from it’s originally scheduled date of June 11.
Supporters gathered outside the Alabama Capitol on Tuesday holding signs that said “HONOR THE JURY.” The ACLU has also petitioned for Lee to be granted clemency. In 2017, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey approved a ban on judicial overrides of jury sentences, but the ban doesn’t retroactively apply to people like Lee, who are facing a death sentence in spite of what the jury recommended. The ACLU has argued that Lee and others who are in his position should be granted clemency under the ban.
“If we’ve made a determination as a state that this is the law going forward, it’s only appropriate and fair and just to apply that same law to the people that are currently on death row with those verdicts,” Alison Mollman, legal director for the ACLU of Alabama, told WHNT.
Those efforts have likely fallen on deaf ears, as an Ivey spokesperson said the governor has no plans to grant clemency. As for Lee, he has embraced Christianity during his time on death row. He has since expressed remorse for his actions and acceptance of his fate.
“I don’t fear dying, and nothing like that, because I know where I would be,” Lee said in an interview, referring to heaven.
SEE ALSO:
Supreme Court Blocks Alabama Execution Of Black Man Using Nitrogen Gas
Alabama Governor Commutes Sentence Of Black Man 2 Days Before Execution
