MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA — A federal judge ruled that Jeffery Lee’s scheduled June 11 execution by nitrogen gas in Alabama does not violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. U.S. District Judge Emily C. Marks issued the decision following the first bench trial in the United States to examine the constitutionality of nitrogen hypoxia as a method of execution.

Lee, 58, filed a lawsuit challenging the use of nitrogen gas, arguing it inflicts unnecessary suffering. Marks wrote, “While Lee establishes that death by nitrogen hypoxia involves some suffering, he fails to show that the protocol is cruel and unusual in violation of the Eighth Amendment.” She added that Alabama’s protocol “likely causes severe air hunger — the most severe form of breathing discomfort — for one to three minutes.” Marks noted that Lee faced a high legal bar because the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to find a state’s method of execution unconstitutional.

Nitrogen gas execution involves strapping a respirator to the condemned person’s face and replacing breathable air with pure nitrogen, leading to death by oxygen deprivation. The method has been used to execute eight people — seven in Alabama and one in Louisiana — though five states have authorized its use. Inmates subjected to the method have displayed varying levels of physical agitation, and Alabama’s most recent nitrogen gas execution lasted over 30 minutes.

Lee was convicted of capital murder for the December 12, 1998, killings of Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson during a robbery at a pawn shop near Orrville, Alabama. Although a jury voted 7-5 in favor of a life sentence, a judge overrode that recommendation and imposed a death sentence — a practice Alabama discontinued in 2017.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall welcomed the ruling, stating, “After the first full trial on nitrogen hypoxia in the entire country, the district court found it to be constitutional. The district court considered all the evidence and concluded that nitrogen hypoxia is not cruel and unusual, affirming that the question of capital punishment belongs to the people and their representatives, not the courts, to resolve.”

Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, criticized the decision. “The real torture of the death penalty is in the decades of waiting. With what we know about each of the available methods of being killed in Alabama or in the U.S., I can’t imagine anyone choosing conscious suffocation,” he said. Bonowitz added that Lee would not face execution today because judicial override is no longer permitted.

Lee’s attorneys indicated they plan to appeal the ruling. His legal team did not issue an immediate comment following the decision.