A last‑minute ruling by the US Supreme Court has blocked Alabama from executing death row inmate Jeffery Lee using nitrogen gas, intensifying scrutiny of a controversial method of capital punishment.
Lee, 49, had been scheduled to die on Thursday evening under Alabama’s nitrogen hypoxia protocol, which forces prisoners to breathe pure nitrogen through a mask until they suffocate. Two lower federal courts had already concluded the procedure was likely to violate the US Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, prompting the state to seek emergency relief from the country’s highest court.
In a brief order issued on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket, a majority of justices denied Alabama’s request without providing detailed reasoning. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented, signalling that they would have allowed the execution to go ahead.
Evidence presented during an April bench trial described inmates subjected to nitrogen executions as experiencing what one expert called "severe air hunger" – a desperate struggle for breath – along with intense anxiety and physical distress before death. Those findings were cited by a federal judge who permanently barred the use of nitrogen hypoxia this week, a decision Alabama officials have sharply criticised.
Attorney General Steve Marshall was quoted by US media partners of the BBC as calling the halted execution a "miscarriage of justice" for the state and for relatives of Lee’s victims. Lee was convicted of murdering two people during a 1998 pawnshop robbery. A jury recommended a life sentence, but a judge later imposed the death penalty under a judicial override system that has since been abolished.
Alabama is one of the few US states to have carried out executions with nitrogen gas, adopting the method amid shortages of lethal injection drugs and legal challenges over botched injections. Supporters argue that nitrogen offers a more reliable and even humane alternative. Opponents say the state has effectively turned condemned prisoners into test cases for an unproven technique.
Legal analysts note that the Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene does not end Alabama’s efforts to execute Lee, as officials can still pursue other authorised methods. But they say the ruling underscores a growing unease in the federal courts about experimental execution protocols and the risk of unconstitutional suffering.
With capital punishment already declining across much of the US, the battle over nitrogen hypoxia is likely to shape debates about how – and whether – the death penalty can be administered in line with modern human rights standards.
