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

The State of Alabama secured a dismissal of Petitioner Jeffery Lee’s challenge to lethal injection by representing that, if he were executed, it would be by nitrogen hypoxia—not lethal injection. The State knew that Mr. Lee had expressly reserved his right to challenge any future nitrogen hypoxia protocol. After he successfully challenged the protocol the State developed, the State invoked the resulting injunction as changed circumstances permitting it to execute him by lethal injection after all. The question presented is: whether judicial and equitable estoppel permit the State to repudiate an unqualified representation to a federal court through which it obtained dismissal of an action by invoking a later development arising from a known contingency that the State itself controlled.