Gov. Kay Ivey announced on Thursday that the execution of Jeffery Lee is scheduled for September. The state plans to use lethal injection after the Supreme Court barred the state from using nitrogen gas to execute the death-row inmate.
The execution is set for Sept. 17, Ivey said.
Lee was convicted in 2000 of capital murder for the killing of Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson and the attempted murder of Helen King during a pawnshop robbery in 1998.
The state originally planned to use nitrogen gas for his execution, but earlier this month the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that deemed the method unconstitutionally cruel. Lee had filed a lawsuit challenging Alabama’s protocol as a violation of the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Alabama began using nitrogen gas to carry out some executions in 2024. The method involves strapping a respirator to a person’s face and replacing breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death from lack of oxygen.
Nitrogen has been used in eight executions in the United States — seven times in Alabama and once in Louisiana. Lee was scheduled to be the ninth.
A jury originally sentenced Lee to life without parole, but a judge overruled that decision and sentenced him to death. Alabama ended the judicial override practice in 2017, the last state to do so.
Lee is currently housed at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.