Alabama set to execute Jeffrey Lee tonight for 1998 double murder

Key Points:

• Jeffery Lee, who has spent 26 years on Alabama's death row, is scheduled for execution tonight by lethal injection for the 1998 murders of Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson, with the crime captured on surveillance video.
• Lee was sentenced to death through a judicial override, where a judge imposed the death penalty despite a jury vote of 7-5 favoring life without parole; Alabama abolished judicial override in 2017, but it does not apply retroactively.
• The U.S. Supreme Court denied Lee's last-minute appeals to stay the execution or change the method from lethal injection, following a previous block on Alabama's nitrogen gas execution protocol.
• Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has no plans to grant clemency, emphasizing that the law preserving existing death sentences ensures promises to victims' families are upheld.
• Advocacy efforts, including a petition signed by over 8,000 people and support from former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justices, are ongoing to commute sentences imposed by judicial override before Governor Ivey leaves office.