Alabama | Lethal injection for double murderer set for Thursday after court blocked nitrogen hypoxia execution in June

Alabama plans to execute Jeffery Lee on Thursday via lethal injection after a down-to-the-wire decision by the federal courts halted his death by nitrogen hypoxia in June.

In response, Gov. Kay Ivey set the 30-hour window for the execution to be carried out by lethal injection beginning at 12 a.m. on Thursday, September 17, and expiring at 6 a.m. on Friday, September 18.

Barring any further court action, the execution will take place at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.

On Dec. 12, 1998, around noon, Lee entered Jimmy's Pawnshop in the town of Orrville in Dallas County, armed with a sawed-off shotgun. Immediately upon entering the store, he shot Jimmy Ellis. After shooting Ellis, he shot Thompson in the face. Continuing his shooting, he shot another person, Helen King, and shot Ellis again. Thompson and Ellis died as a result of the shotgun blasts.

King survived the shooting after lying motionless on the floor pretending to be dead. Lee unsuccessfully attempted to take the cash register from the store and escaped with two others. A surveillance video captured the murders, and he later confessed after being captured in a Georgia motel.

The jury recommended Lee be sentenced to life in prison. However, the court overruled the recommendation, sentencing him to death and doling out an additional life sentence for the attempted murder of King.

U.S. District Judge Emily Marks barred the State from carrying out the nitrogen hypoxia execution in June, holding that it violated the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. She also stated that Lee's preferred method of execution by firing squad would be feasible for the State to accommodate, even though it would require an act of the legislature.

A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the State's attempts to override Marks' ruling, leading the State to appeal to the Supreme Court, which upheld the ruling on the night the execution was slated to take place.

Source: 1819news.com, Craig Monger, September 14, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde

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