The legal team representing a convicted double murderer has made efforts to delay his scheduled execution as they challenge the use of nitrogen gas in the lethal injection process. Jeffery James Lee, aged 49, was found guilty of the murders of Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson during a robbery at Ellis’ pawn shop in 1998. Despite Alabama Governor Kay Ivey setting a June 11 execution date for Lee, his lawyers are contesting the humaneness of the nitrogen execution method in an ongoing federal lawsuit.

The execution date was finalized while Lee’s lawsuit questioning the constitutionality of the nitrogen method is pending. A federal judge has arranged a bench trial on April 27 to address Lee’s claims that the nitrogen process violates the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Lee’s legal team had requested the Alabama Supreme Court to postpone setting an execution date until after the lawsuit’s outcome.

Alabama adopted the use of nitrogen gas in 2024 for certain executions, involving a gas mask that replaces breathable air with pure nitrogen to induce death by oxygen deprivation. Nationally, this method has been employed in eight executions, with Alabama using it seven times and Louisiana once.

Lee was convicted of capital murder for the deaths of Ellis and Thompson in December 1998 near Orrville, Alabama. Prosecutors stated that Lee entered Jimmy’s Pawnshop armed with a sawed-off shotgun and fatally shot both Ellis and Thompson.

Following a jury’s 7-5 vote in favor of a life imprisonment sentence, a judge disregarded this recommendation and sentenced Lee to death. In 2017, Alabama abolished the practice of judicial override, prohibiting judges from disregarding a jury’s sentencing decision in death penalty cases.