USA - Alabama. Jeffery Lee, 49, Black, was executed on September 17

September 17, 2026 - Alabama. Jeffery Lee, 49, Black, was executed on September 17

Lee was executed by lethal injection at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore and pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m., the state Corrections Department said. He declined a final meal, it said.

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

Lee was convicted of murder in the fatal shootings of two people in a 1998 pawnshop robbery near Selma: 

The majority of jurors chose life without parole, but a judge overruled them in a practice the state has since abolished.

Lee was 21 when he entered Jimmy’s Pawn Shop on Dec. 12, 1998, with his brother and cousin, saying he was looking at wedding rings for his girlfriend. He browsed the display, then left. Minutes later, authorities said, he re-entered with a sawed-off shotgun, fatally shot store owner Jimmy Ellis, and his ex-wife Elaine Thompson, who also worked at the store, and wounded another employee, Helen King.

Lee was found guilty in 2000. While a majority of jurors voted that he get life without parole, the judge instead sentenced him to death in a practice known as “judicial override,” which Alabama banned in 2017. Previous cases like Lee’s weren’t included.

Lee’s attorneys said Thursday after Lee was killed that jurors did not vote to sentence him to death.

“His death sentence rested solely on judicial override — an old law that Alabama has repealed. The State itself concluded this practice was wrong enough to abandon yet still put a man to death under it. That is a moral failure, not just a legal formality,” Lee’s attorneys said.

Lee had been on death row for nearly three decades and had expressed remorse for his actions. He had told NBC News that he had found redemption through his Christian faith.

Lee becomes the 2nd person executed this year in Alabama, the 85th since the state resumed executions in 1983, the 27th person to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1,681st overall since the nation resumed executions in 1977.