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Emergency application

Nitrogen gas executions

Greg Lovelace, Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections v. Jeffery Lee

Denied
No. 25A1381Vacatur applicationFiled by a state or local governmentPresented to Justice ThomasFrom United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit

What did the Court do?

The Court denied the request on June 11, 2026, leaving the lower-court order in place.

Emergency rulings are temporary and do not decide the underlying case. Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, and Justice Gorsuch would have ruled the other way.

Filed Ruled 0 days after filing

What's being asked

Greg Lovelace, Alabama’s corrections commissioner, and Holman prison warden Terry Raybon ask the Supreme Court to pause or wipe out a district court order. The order bars Alabama’s planned use of nitrogen hypoxia to execute Jeffery Lee. Lee challenges whether Alabama’s method violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The method replaces breathing air with pure nitrogen.

What the Court did

The Court refused emergency help and denied (turned down) Alabama’s request to pause or wipe out the district court order. It did not decide whether Alabama’s method violates the Eighth Amendment. The Court did not publish a full vote; the order says Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch would grant the request.

  • Dissented
  • Vote not published
Dissenting · 3recorded against the Court's order
  1. Thomaswould grant
  2. Alitowould grant
  3. Gorsuchwould grant
Vote not published · 6the order does not say how they voted
  1. Roberts
  2. Sotomayor
  3. Kagan
  4. Kavanaugh
  5. Barrett
  6. Jackson
The order records the positions of 3 of 9 justices. The Court usually does not say how each justice voted on an emergency application, so the rest are shown as not published.
Half of 252 rulings on applications decided without a response came 8 to 30 days after filing, and the median was 14 days; this one was ruled on 0 days after filing.

What it means

The emergency ruling addresses only temporary relief and does not decide the underlying dispute; the district court order remains in place. The case continues in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama and the Eleventh Circuit. No related Supreme Court case on the main question is listed, and no argument is set.

Sources

Facts on this page come from the Supreme Court docket, orders, and opinions for No. 25A1381. The answers restate that record in plain words; explainer copy is written from the record and the filings only.

Checked October 4, 2026