An Alabama felon convicted of the murder of a world-renowned Elvis impersonator and his ex-wife is making a last-ditch appeal for mercy days before he is set to die.

Jeffrey Lee, 49, has spent the last 26 years at Holman Correctional Facility over the deaths of Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson during a robbery in 1998.

He is scheduled to receive the death penalty on September 17 following years of legal wrangling which saw his initial execution date of June 11 was pushed back.

But now Lee is asking for clemency and begging the authorities to commute his sentence to life without parole, AL.com reports.

Lee was initially handed the punishment when he was convicted in 2000, however, it was overruled by a judge six months later who gave him the death penalty.

Lee had chosen to die by gas when given the option between this and undergoing a lethal injection in 2018.

But days before the execution, the courts ruled nitrogen executions unconstitutional. The US Supreme Court agreed and barred the use of gas to execute Lee.

Now with just days before his execution date, Lee is hoping Alabama's Governor Kay Ivey will grant clemency.

Lee has expressed remorse for his role in the deadly robbery in Orville.

'Since I've been here, I've been trying to go forward, be different, be better,' he said.

Lee was caught on surveillance cameras entering the store with his cousins and shooting the owners. Helen King, an employee at the Jimmy Pawn shop, was also injured.

Ellis was a singer who rose to fame as an Elvis Presley impersonator who also performed under the name Orion.

He even had a Netflix documentary made about his life titled Orion: The Man Who Would Be King.

Lee told AL.com that he has learned to live with the past.

'I try not to dwell on it. I try to just keep moving forward,' he said.

He added that he had grown up in a toxic environment. His childhood was spent in extreme poverty, domestic violence and substance abuse.

Lee said that while this was not an excuse for what he did, it was a 'part of the journey' he went through to prison.

He, like many other prisoners in Alabama, had no idea that a jury's decision can be overruled.

'To just hear those words, I just went numb,' said Lee. 'I think about that every day.' 

Lee's sentence is particularly painful for him as in April 2017, the lawmakers passed a new bill that abolished judicial override. 

The law was not retroactive, making Lee's death sentence still valid.

'To not make it retroactive, that kind of hurts in a way,' he said.

He, along with 24 other inmates, is still on Alabama Death Row after the original decisions were overruled.

Judges, former jurors and many officials have spoken against the sentences, with former Governors expressing they wished they had issued commutations.

'I feel like I deserve a chance,' Lee said.

He added that revoking the death sentence is 'not really showing a weakness on crime.' He said that it just allows prisoners to live in prison for the rest of their lives.

'Living in prison, that's not an easy thing,' he added.

Alongside Lee's bid for clemency, he has been battling the state over the manner of his execution.

He previously elected to die by nitrogen gas before his legal team were able to successfully raise doubts about the constitutionality of the method and his execution was delayed.

The state then moved to execute him by lethal injection, but Lee's team argued the method could subject him to undue pain and suffering, which they claim makes it unconstitutional.

Lee's team even proposed death by firing squad over lethal injection, however this is not approved in Alabama. 

'It would expand the concept of cruelty well beyond the bounds of the Eighth Amendment,' the state's top prosecutors told AL.com.

Ultimately prosecutors from the Alabama Attorney General's Office have so far successfully argued that the injection is the state's default method and the one that should be used.

The Daily Mail has contacted Ivey, Lee's lawyer and the Alabama Attorney General's Office for comment.