The state of Alabama executed Jeffery Lee, 49, by lethal injection on Thursday for the 1998 murders of Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson during a pawn shop robbery in Orrville. Lee was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m.

“All is well, I just want to say to my family, I love them,” Lee said in his final statement. “To my brothers on life row, I love them.”

Media witnesses did not observe any complications during the execution. Lee's execution comes just over two months after a federal district court rejected the state’s attempt to use nitrogen gas and following an unsuccessful campaign for clemency by death penalty opponents.

Governor Kay Ivey issued a statement reaffirming her commitment to justice, saying the “promise was fulfilled for his victims.” Governor Ivey added that this case highlights why the 2017 law ending “judicial override” did not apply to existing death sentences like Lee’s. She stated, “These victims have waited long enough, and I pray they can feel peace and have closure.”

Lee was convicted in 2000 for the murders of Thompson and Ellis. During his trial, Lee’s attorneys sought to prevent a death sentence, citing his youth at the time, his two children, and what they described as an intellectual disability. A jury subsequently voted 7-5 to recommend a sentence of life in prison without parole. However, Dallas County Circuit Court Judge Jack Meigs overruled the jury’s recommendation, imposing the death sentence. Judge Meigs wrote that Lee had “mercilessly” killed Thompson and Ellis.

For decades, Alabama allowed judges to impose the death penalty even against a jury’s recommendation, a practice known as judicial override. While the Alabama Legislature abolished this practice in 2017, the law was not applied retroactively. Death penalty opponents had petitioned Governor Ivey to commute Lee’s sentence, emphasizing the original jury determination.

Governor Ivey’s spokeswoman, Gina Maiola, stated on Wednesday that the 2017 law abolishing judicial override “made very clear that it would not apply retroactively.”

Lee’s attorneys released a statement following the execution on Thursday, asserting that Lee’s death sentence rested solely on judicial override and calling it “a moral failure, not just a legal formality.” They wrote, “A state that no longer stands behind the rule that condemned a man, but kills him under it anyway, has not delivered justice. It has revealed how little its own standards constrain it when it is determined to carry out an execution.”

This execution marks the state’s second this year. Last month, Jeremy Williams, 41, was put to death by lethal injection for his involvement in the sexual assault and murder of a 5-year-old girl in Russell County in 2021.

Governor Ivey has previously commuted other death sentences. Earlier this year, she commuted the sentence of Charles “Sonny” Burton, who was sentenced to death for being present during a 1991 robbery in Talladega where a customer was killed. Burton did not pull the trigger and was not in the store when the victim died, and opponents of his execution noted that Derrick DeBruce, who shot the victim, had his death sentence commuted to life in prison. In February 2025, Governor Ivey also commuted the death sentence for Robin “Rocky” Myers amid questions regarding his 1991 conviction for Ludie Mae Tucker’s murder, as there was no physical evidence linking him to her death.

Lee’s execution followed a series of legal challenges regarding the method. Lee was initially scheduled for execution by nitrogen gas in June but sued to block it, arguing it would constitute unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment and suggesting a firing squad as an alternative. His suit led to a bench trial over the state’s use of nitrogen gas, a method that witnesses to other nitrogen gas executions described as leading to drawn-out deaths.

U.S. District Judge Emily Marks initially ruled in late May that while the nitrogen gas process would cause air hunger, it did not rise to cruel and unusual punishment. However, a three-judge panel with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed this decision, stating that air hunger went “over and above the mental distress that typically accompanies the knowledge of impending death by execution.” The judges directed Marks to determine if death by firing squad was a feasible alternative. Judge Marks subsequently ruled it was feasible and blocked the state’s use of nitrogen gas, a decision the U.S. Supreme Court declined to overturn.

The day after this ruling, the state moved to execute Lee by lethal injection. Lee’s attorneys argued in federal court that a 2018 settlement from a previous lawsuit brought by Lee against lethal injection prevented the state from using this method. Judge Marks, however, ruled in the state’s favor, citing changed circumstances. The state did not make serious efforts to attempt an execution by firing squad, which was Lee’s preferred method, and his attorneys did not significantly refer to it.

The state plans to execute Michael Shannon Taylor in November.