US Supreme Court denies Alabama's request to carry out nitrogen gas execution

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Alabama's request to proceed with executing Jeffery Lee through nitrogen gas inhalation, upholding lower court rulings that determined this execution method likely constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Constitution. A federal judge permanently prohibited nitrogen hypoxia executions after hearing evidence that inmates likely suffer severe respiratory distress and psychological trauma before dying. Lee, who has spent over twenty years on death row for a 1998 double murder, had originally received a life sentence recommendation from his jury before a judge imposed the death penalty through a now-banned override process.