Newz(AP) — Alabama is set to execute a man Thursday night via lethal injection, three months after a judge’s ruling blocked the state from putting him to death with nitrogen gas. Jeffery Lee, 49, is scheduled to receive an injection beginning at 6 p.m. Holman Correctional Facility for killing two people during a 1998 pawn shop robbery in rural Dallas County.
The state initially sought to execute Lee on June 11 using gas. But after a judge stopped that plan, the Alabama attorney general’s office immediately filed paperwork seeking the new execution date for Lee, this time by the chemical injection method. Lee and his supporters have made a final bid to spare him, noting the jury in his case had made a recommendation of life imprisonment, which the judge overrode.
His attorneys also argued in court that the state should not be legally allowed to switch execution methods. Twenty-six inmates have been executed around the U.S. to date this year, including a Texas man given a lethal injection for his conviction in a triple murder at his neighbor’s home.
Elsewhere, a judge blocked plans Wednesday by the state of Georgia to execute a man who killed two real estate agents. Two killed in 1998 pawn shop robbery The double murder occurred on Dec. 12, 1998, at Jimmy’s Pawn Shop in Orrville, a small town west of Selma.
Jimmy Ellis, the store’s owner, and Elaine Thompson, a store employee, were shot and killed. Another employee survived by playing dead. The surviving witness testified that Lee entered the store, asked to see wedding rings and said he would be back after getting money from his grandmother.
Lee returned a short time later with a sawed-off shotgun and shot Ellis, Thompson and the other employee. The surviving witness fell to the floor, pretending to be dead, and called 911 once Lee left the store. Ellis, a singer whose voice resembled Elvis Presley’s, had gained a national following for a time as an Elvis impersonator.
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