Rev. Jeff Hood witnessed both the state's first and last nitrogen execution. He's been fighting back ever since

In January 2024, spiritual advisor Reverend Jeff Hood stood witness in Alabama to the country’s first nitrogen execution. It was a horrific experience, he says, like watching a goldfish out of water, but far worse. Last week, though, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a ruling that blocked one Alabama man’s execution on grounds that the use of nitrogen gas constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. That case sets a precedent that could effectively prevent such a method from being used again on Alabama inmates.

Jeffrey Lee was scheduled to be put to death on July 11 for a 1998 double murder, but challenged the relatively new form of execution — a kind of asphyxiation by gas — which has led to some inmates dying slow, painful death, despite claims that the method is more humane than others.

“Probably the last thing I could have imagined was becoming an expert on nitrogen executions,” Hood tells Rolling Stone. Nevertheless, as the inmate Kenneth Smith’s spiritual adviser, he witnessed America’s first execution by nitrogen in January of 2024. “When I first got in touch with Kenny, he made me promise to tell the world his story. I was the first person to tell the world what had just happened, I considered that a tremendous responsibility, and that responsibility hasn’t subsided.”

Hood became a spiritual adviser in 2022, after the Supreme Court ruled that inmates could have such people with them when the state puts them to death. He’d witnessed several deaths by the time Smith was executed, but this was the first time he was scared for his own safety, since the process was yet untested and it was possible for the poison gas to leak into the chamber. “I think it’s important to say that this is the first time in human history that other people who are not being executed are at a threat of being executed,” Hood told me at the time.

The reverend emerged unscathed — physically, at least. Emotionally, he watched a friend die over the course of an agonizing eight minutes, as his face twitched like there were “a million ants crawling under his skin,” Hood recalls. Since then, eight people have been executed in such a manner, seven in Alabama alone; five states allow the method.

Hood also witnessed Anthony Boyd’s execution in October of 2025, which he says lasted 18 minutes. “You feel like dog shit sitting there, trying to pray and endure this,” he says. “And you know that you’re one step away from ripping off that mask.” Boyd was the last man to die of nitrogen gas in Alabama before Jeffrey Lee successfully fought his execution method this month.

All the while, Hood spent the last two and a half years raising awareness about the alleged horror of the process, even as he watched politicians and naysayers claim the method was more humane than lethal injection. He wrote a book, did press conferences in the same mask they use for executions, and put up billboards reading “Thou Shall Not Suffocate” all over Alabama.

After the Supreme Court’s decision, he was elated. “I felt vindication,” he says. “Like, ‘You assholes put me through this. Tortured me. Gave me fucking nightmares for two and a half years.’ This has been an unbelievable journey, and of course it’s not completely over, but we are seeing the beginnings of the end.” Hood is now hopeful other states will follow Alabama’s example — and states that do not yet allow this execution method take note.

“This is not just about telling their stories,” Hood says of Boyd and Smith. “It’s about documenting this, so that future generations will understand the horror that comes with suffocating people. This is horrible, it’s torture, and it’s beneath us as human beings.”

Still, his work isn’t over. Next week, Hood will attend his thirteenth execution — Dusty Spencer, the oldest man ever to be executed in Florida. Plus, the U.S. only seems to be ramping up executions, despite public opinion of the death penalty being at a historic low. The Death Penalty Information Center reports that 47 people were killed in 2025, the most in 10 years. Fifteen have died this year. 

President Donald Trump has also long been a massive supporter of the death penalty. Joe Biden finished his presidency by clearing out most of U.S.’s federal death row, an action Trump has hastened to, in eyes, remedy. His department of justice brought back the firing squad on federal row in April of 2026; several states now also use what was once considered an archaic method. Trump also brought lethal injection back to federal prisons, a protocol Biden withdrew before his term ended.