During a 30-hour window starting June 11 and ending June 12, Jeffrey Lee is scheduled to be executed in Alabama by nitrogen-gassing or “nitrogen hypoxia” if you prefer that name; the bottom line is nitrogen gas will be pumped into Lee by gas mask until he dies. Since 2024, Alabama has executed seven men and Louisiana has executed one man by nitrogen-gassing.

These are some questions I ask you to consider about Alabama’s upcoming nitrogen-gassing of Mr. Lee:

A jury recommended by a vote of 7 to 5 that Lee, who is Black, be imprisoned to life without the possibility of parole. But the trial judge, Jack Meigs, a white man, decided the jury got it wrong and sentenced Lee to death instead using a practice called “judicial override” which Alabama outlawed in 2017—the last state to eliminate the practice. Although Alabama got rid of judicial override years ago the change was not made retroactive to prisoners like Lee, allowing his death sentence to remain unchanged. In July 2011 the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) issued a report about judicial override that began: “No capital sentencing procedure in the United States has come under more criticism as unreliable, unpredictable, and arbitrary than the unique Alabama practice........

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