For a decade, Alabama death row inmate Jeffrey Lee has been clear that he does not want to be executed by lethal injection. But that is what awaits him on September 17.
He faces that prospect because the state has been enjoined from using nitrogen hypoxia, the alternative execution method he preferred, to put him to death. Having failed to show that its nitrogen hypoxia protocol is constitutionally acceptable, Alabama wants a do-over, to force Lee to die by lethal injection as a result of its own failure. It should not get one.
Alabama should only be able to put Lee to death if it can fix nitrogen hypoxia’s constitutional defects…