After a legal back and forth over ways to die, a federal judge said that an Alabama Death Row inmate can not be put to death this week using the state’s nitrogen execution method.
Jeffery Lee’s execution is on hold after a federal judge ruled Tuesday that Alabama’s nitrogen method, which involves inmates breathing in pure nitrogen gas through a gas mask until they lose consciousness and die, is unconstitutional.
While the judge didn’t explicitly stay Thursday’s execution, she said the state couldn’t use gas to do it. The state has two other methods they could use – the electric chair and lethal injection – but it was questionable whether the state could use either at this late date…