News24 | Last-minute US Supreme Court order halts Alabama nitrogen gas execution
The US Supreme Court blocked an execution in Alabama.
Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images/AFP
The US Supreme Court blocked an execution by using nitrogen gas.Inmate Jeffery Lee was scheduled for execution in Alabama.The UN has denounced the use of nitrogen gas as a method of capital punishment as cruel and inhumane.The US Supreme Court blocked Alabama from executing a death row inmate by using nitrogen gas on Thursday, in a rare last-minute intervention after a lower court ruled the method was likely unconstitutional.Inmate Jeffery Lee, 49, was scheduled to be put to death on Thursday via nitrogen gas hypoxia for the murder of two people during a robbery in 1998.A US federal judge ruled on Tuesday against the use of nitrogen gas to carry out the sentence, with the state of Alabama appealing the decision to the Supreme Court.“The application for stay or vacatur... referred to the Court is denied,” the Supreme Court said in an unsigned order issued on Thursday evening, adding that three of its nine justices, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, dissented.The order did not give a reason for the decision, which is typical for emergency rulings.READ | Israel pushes bill to try October 7 Palestinians with death penalty powersThe United Nations has denounced the use of nitrogen gas as a method of capital punishment as cruel and inhumane.Fifteen executions have been carried out in the US this year – eight in Florida, four in Texas, two in Oklahoma and one in Arizona.There were 47 executions in the country last year, the most since 2009, when 52 people were put to death.Florida carried out the most executions in 2025, with 19, followed by Alabama, South Carolina and Texas, where there were five each.Thirty-nine of last year’s executions were carried out by lethal injection.Three were by firing squad and five by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a face mask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others – California, Oregon and Pennsylvania – have moratoriums in place.US President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and has called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”
