Supreme Court prohibits Alabama from using nitrogen gas for execution

The Supreme Court ruled late Thursday evening that Alabama cannot immediately execute a man using nitrogen gas. The decision upheld a lower court order that had blocked the execution on grounds that the use of nitrogen gas violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

In a one-sentence order, the high court ruled that Alabama's request "was denied." Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch would have sided with Alabama, but they did not prepare a written dissent.

The decision is a victory—albeit a temporary one—for Jeffery Lee, who was convicted of a 1998 double murder. Lee was scheduled to die on July 11. He challenged the method of execution, contending that nitrogen gas forces someone to undergo many minutes of painful suffocation.

A federal district court initially disagreed with Lee's argument, and allowed Alabama to execute him using the state's preferred method. But on Monday, an appeals court ruled that Alabama's protocol for administering nitrogen gas executions "presents a substantial risk of serious harm—severe pain over and above death itself."

Journalists and advocates who have witnessed other executions using nitrogen gas have reported that those subjected to it writhe and retch as they die; Justice Sonia Sotomayor described the experience of suffocating as "intense psychological torment" in a 2025 dissent where her conservative colleagues allowed a different nitrogen gas execution to take place. In this case, a group of doctors filed a brief to inform the court that in their opinion, execution via nitrogen gas "necessarily causes inhumane suffering."

The Supreme Court in a series of opinions dating back to 2008 has ruled that when death row inmates challenge the method of their execution, they must provide an alternative means of carrying out the death penalty that would not violate the Eighth Amendment. In this case, Lee suggested that Alabama instead execute him via firing squad.

Alabama appealed to the Supreme Court early Thursday morning , arguing that executions using nitrogen gas do not "cause the kind of severe pain that characterized cruel punishments before the founding." In fact, the Supreme Court signed off on the state's first execution by nitrogen gas in 2024 . Since then, there have been eight such executions, seven of which have taken place in Alabama. The state also argued that it is impractical for it to assemble a firing squad.

This decision comes amid a rise in the number of executions carried out each year. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, states executed 47 people in 2025—the highest number in over a decade . So far, states have executed 15 people this year, not including Lee. President Trump has sought to expand the use of the death penalty during his second term, even though there are currently only three people on federal death row.