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Alabama carries out execution of Jeffery Lee for 1998 double murder at pawnshop
Lee was executed by lethal injection after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene, ending a case marked by a jury’s 7-5 life recommendation.
Alabama executed Jeffery Lee by lethal injection on Thursday at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, with the inmate pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m.
Dallas County Circuit Judge Jack Meigs sentenced Lee to death in 2000 for the 1998 murders of Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson, overriding a jury's 7-5 vote recommending life in prison.
State authorities switched to lethal injection after a federal judge's June ruling blocked Alabama's planned nitrogen gas method, citing constitutional concerns about cruel and unusual punishment.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey stated the execution fulfilled a promise to victims' families, while Attorney General Steve Marshall declared that "the record spoke with one voice" regarding the verdict.
Although Alabama abolished judicial overrides in 2017, the change was not retroactive, leaving Lee among more than two dozen inmates facing death sentences imposed by judges rather than juries.
Jeffery Lee, 49, was executed by lethal injection in the US state of Alabama on Thursday. He was sentenced to death for a double murder committed during a robbery in December 1998. Lee was originally scheduled to be executed by nitrogen gas, but a court blocked that three months ago.