(Adnkronos) – A federal judge in Alabama has banned state authorities from using nitrogen inhalation for the execution of Jeffrey Lee, which had been set for tomorrow. In her ruling, Judge Emily Marks states that Alabama’s introduction of nitrogen hypoxia as a method of capital punishment constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment,” thereby violating the Eighth Amendment of the American Constitution, which protects inmates from such punishments.
With this ruling, Cbsnews reports today, the judge in effect reverses a previous pronouncement in which she had determined that the new execution protocol – so far used to put seven condemned prisoners to death in Alabama and one in Louisiana – would not be unconstitutional. Now Marks states that Lee’s lawyers have presented “preponderant evidence” to demonstrate the cruelty of the procedure, which requires the condemned to inhale pure nitrogen through a mask until suffocated due to lack of oxygen.
After hearing witnesses and experts, the judge determined that inmates killed with this protocol very likely suffered from “severe air hunger and corresponding emotional, psychological, and physical stress” for at least three minutes before dying from asphyxiation. “There is therefore a substantial risk of serious harm – the ruling continues – counting 60 or 180 seconds is not a quick thing and, from a constitutional point of view, this timeframe is intolerable given the suffering that would be experienced with the nitrogen protocol adopted by Alabama.”
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has already announced an appeal against the ruling, and in all likelihood, the matter will reach the United States Supreme Court, which has so far never declared any method of capital punishment unconstitutional.
To demonstrate a violation of the Eighth Amendment, the Supreme Court requires proof that an execution method constitutes a “substantial risk” of causing severe suffering. It also requires that a reasonable alternative method of execution be offered. Inmate Lee has asked authorities for a firing squad as an alternative, a method that Judge Marks, in her ruling, considers “feasible, easily implementable, and reduces the risk of severe suffering.”
The firing squad is not authorized in Alabama, which has lethal injection and nitrogen hypoxia as execution methods since 2024, and is one of the few American states to provide the option of choosing the electric chair.
