Louisiana prepares first execution using nitrogen gas after 15-year pause
Louisiana is set to put a condemned man to death using nitrogen gas Tuesday evening in its first execution since 2010, which would make it only the second state to administer the controversial method.
The execution of Jessie Hoffman Jr., convicted in the 1996 murder of a woman abducted from a New Orleans parking garage, is scheduled for between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. local time at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.
Hours before the planned execution, a state district court judge rejected an attempt by Hoffman's lawyers to obtain a temporary pause. Gov. Jeff Landry, who signed a bill last year making nitrogen hypoxia a legal alternative to lethal injection, is not expected to intervene either.
However, an outstanding appeal remains before the U.S. Supreme Court. Hoffman's lawyers on Monday argued that the method violates his constitutional rights, including his ability to practice his Buddhist religion in his final moments.
"It would be unconscionable for the Supreme Court to allow Jessie to be executed before these questions of religious freedom and cruel and unusual punishment can be carefully and thoroughly resolved," Cecelia Kappel, a lawyer for Hoffman, said in a statement.
Hoffman, 46, said he began practicing Buddhism in 2002 and has used meditative breathing practices to calm his anxiety in prison. But by putting him to death using nitrogen hypoxia, which involves placing a mask over his face and having him breathe only nitrogen while depriving him of oxygen, an anticipated "sense of suffocation" would be "incompatible" with his right to religious exercise, according to his lawyers.
"The record evidence unrebutted by the State establishes that, in Buddhist tradition, meditative breathing at the time of death carries profound spiritual significance, founded in the core belief that meditation and unfettered breath at the time of transition from life to death determines the quality of rebirth," his lawyers wrote in a filing asking the Supreme Court to temporarily halt his execution.
Whether the high court will be swayed remains to be seen, but the conservative-majority justices have routinely declined to block nitrogen gas executions in Alabama, which began using the method last year.
Louisiana Corrections Secretary Gary Westcott selected nitrogen hypoxia as Hoffman's method of execution after officials have had trouble procuring the necessary lethal injection drugs following the state's last execution in 2010. More than 50 people are on Louisiana's death row.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick in Louisiana temporarily stopp ed Hoffman's execution after she found it deserves more scrutiny and said she was troubled that the state waited to release only a redacted nitrogen hypoxia protocol to the public.
Hoffman's lawyers had offered alternatives to nitrogen hypoxia at a hearing before the judge, including the method of firing squad or a drug cocktail typically associated with physician-assisted death, although neither option is legal in Louisiana.
A federal appeals court reversed the lower court's temporary injunction Friday, in part, it said, because allowing Louisiana to choose a "more painful" execution method such as firing squad would be at odds with the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
In the nitrogen hypoxia executions in Alabama, media witnesses have described inmates appearing to remain conscious longer than expected, gasping for breath and thrashing and shaking on the gurney.
Alabama officials have argued in court filings that the method is "swift, painless and humane" and that one of the inmates chose to hold his breath, which hindered his becoming unconscious faster.
Louisiana corrections officials said they traveled to Alabama to study how its nitrogen system functions. Louisiana subsequently built a nitrogen hypoxia facility at the Louisiana State Penitentiary consisting of an execution chamber, a valve and storage room, and an observation area.
Medical experts have warned that if the procedure is not carried out properly, even a small amount of oxygen's getting into the mask could lead to slow asphyxiation and prolong the time it would take to die.
State attorneys argue that Hoffman would still be able to breathe in the mask and that, if anything, "such deep breathing may well lead to him losing consciousness even more quickly."
Attorney General Liz Murrill said Friday on X that Hoffman's execution would be "justice for Mary 'Molly' Elliot, her friends, her family, and for Louisiana."
Hoffman was 18 in 1996 when he abducted Elliott, a 28-year-old advertising executive, at gunpoint from a New Orleans parking garage on the night before Thanksgiving Day. Prosecutors said he forced her to withdraw $200 from an ATM, then raped and shot her to death.
At Hoffman's trial in 1998, prosecutors told the jury that he confessed and said Elliott begged him not to kill her.
"When she asked for mercy, his response was to put a bullet through her head," said the prosecutor, Kim McElwee. "Jesse Hoffman has earned the death penalty."
Andy Elliott, the victim's husband, said in a statement that he has become "indifferent" to the use of the death penalty in the three decades since his wife's murder.
"However, I'm not indifferent to the uncertainty that has accompanied these many years. If putting him to death is the easiest way to end the uncertainty, then on balance I favor that solution. But, his death will not provide closure," Elliott said of Hoffman, adding, "That pain cannot be decreased by another death, nor by commuting the sentence of Molly's assailant to life in prison."
"Molly was a cherished person who missed out on motherhood, a promising and successful career, and a life in the country on the property we bought together," Elliott said.
"From my standpoint, hearing why he did this crime is the only hole that could be filled by Jesse himself, yet, he's never offered any explanation or remorse, not even to his own family," he continued.
Critics of nitrogen hypoxia have included the Louisiana coalition Jews Against Gassing, whose members have said the method "echoes" the Holocaust.
inmate to death by lethal injection for the first time since 2022.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Supreme Court to hear Alabama appeal in push to execute intellectually disabled man
The Supreme Court will hear an appeal from Alabama 's Attorney General's Office in its push to execute an intellectually disabled man, according to an order released early on Friday. Joseph Clifton Smith, now 54, was sentenced to death for a decades-old murder — a decision that continues to be challenged in court. In 1997, Smith beat Durk Van Dam to death with a hammer and a saw in Mobile County to steal his boots, tools and $140, Reuters reported. Van Dam's body was found in his truck in an isolated wooded area. Lower federal courts found Smith is intellectually disabled and can't be executed. People who are intellectually disabled are protected from the death penalty following a Supreme Court ruling from 2002. But this fall, the Supreme Court will hear arguments about what to do in cases when IQ scores are slightly above the widely accepted 70-point marker to determine if someone is intellectually disabled. When a federal appeals court ruled in May 2023 that Smith could not be executed due to his intellectual disability, it detailed how he struggled in school from an early age. Since first grade, Smith struggled in school, and when he underwent an intellectual evaluation he received an IQ score of 75, CNN reported at the time, citing the appeals court. In fourth grade, Smith was placed in a learning-disability class. 'After that placement, Smith developed an unpredictable temper and often fought with classmates. His behavior became so troublesome that his school placed him in an 'emotionally conflicted classroom,'' the appeals court wrote in its ruling. Smith dropped out of school after failing seventh and eighth grade and then spent 'much of the next 15 years in prison' for crimes of burglary and receiving stolen property, according to the ruling. The appeals court said Smith confessed to killing Van Dam and that he 'offered two conflicting versions of the crime.' Smith first said he watched Van Dam be killed, and then he said he took part in his murder but didn't mean to kill him, according to the appeals court. The Alabama Attorney General's office decried the appeals court's ruling, saying at the time, according to CNN, 'Smith's IQ scores have consistently placed his IQ above that of someone who is intellectually disabled. The Attorney General thinks his death sentence was both just and constitutional.' The Supreme Court will now consider making it harder for convicted murderers to show their lives should be spared because they are intellectually disabled.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Trans lobby groups 'lied for years' that anyone self identifying as a different gender could access women's' toilets, equality chief says
Transgender people were misled about their rights to female only spaces by lobby groups, according to a senior member of an equality watchdog has said. In April a Supreme Court ruling confirmed the terms woman and sex in the 2010 Equality Act 'refer to a biological woman and biological sex'. Akua Reindorf, a barrister who is one of eight commissioners at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said trans people had been deceived about their rights were. Speaking in a personal capacity during a debate about the recent ruling, she said there must be a 'period of correction' to acknowledge women's right to women-only spaces. The decision made it legal for trans people to be banned from women-only sports teams, and from using bathrooms and changing rooms for the gender they lived as. These terms were later supported by interim non-statutory advice given by the EHRC last April. When an audience member at the debate raised fears about the recent Supreme Court ruling and how it could strip away trans peoples rights, barrister and panellist, Naomi Cunningham said: 'It can't be helped, I'm afraid.' In agreement with her fellow panellist, Ms Reindorf said she believed trans lobbyists were at faults for the misunderstanding. 'Unfortunately, young people and trans people have been lied to over many years about what their rights are,' she said. 'It's like Naomi said – I just can't say it in a more diplomatic way than that. They have been lied to, and there has to be a period of correction, because other people have rights' She claimed it boiled down to the law prior to the Supreme Court ruling being misunderstood due to groups contending trans people who self-identified should be treated as their preferred gender. However, this was only the case for the those who had obtained a gender recognition certificate (GRC). The barrister said the amalgamation of different rights made the Equality Act nonviable from a personal capacity. 'The catalyst for many to catch up, belatedly, with the fact that the law never permitted self-ID in the first place,' she said. As such, the feeling of a loss of right of trans people was due to an overwhelming product of 'misinformation' perpetrated by 'lobby group and activists'. Author JK Rowling backed the barrister's recent comments, saying lobby groups lied 'about what the law said'.' However, the head of gender justice at Amnesty International UK, Chiara Capraro, hit back Ms Reindorf's comments. She said: 'The EHRC has the duty to uphold the rights of everyone, including all with protected characteristics. We are concerned that it is failing to do so and is unhelpfully pitting the rights of women and trans people against each other.' A spokesman for the EHRC told The Guardian: 'Akua Reindorf KC spoke at this event in a personal capacity. This was made clear at the event and in the video recording published online. 'As Britain's equality regulator, the Equality and Human Rights Commission upholds and enforces the Equality Act 2010 to ensure everyone is treated fairly, consistent with the Act. 'Our board come from all walks of life and bring with them a breadth of skills and experience. This helps us take impartial decisions, which are always based on evidence and the law.'
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Trans people have been lied to on legal rights, says equalities chief
Transgender people must accept a 'period of correction' over their rights after the Supreme Court ruling on gender because they have been 'lied to' about their legal status for years, an equalities chief says. Akua Reindorf, who is drafting guidance on how to treat trans people following April's ruling on the definition of a woman, added that the blame lay with their lobbyists. Ms Reindorf, a barrister and one of eight commissioners on the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), made her remarks in a personal capacity during a debate hosted by the London School of Economics. She said: 'Unfortunately, young people and trans people have been lied to over many years about what their rights are.' The EHRC has been given the task of developing new guidelines on transgender people for public buildings such as cafes, schools and hospitals, after the Supreme Court ruled transgender women are not legally women. Shortly after the ruling the EHRC released interim guidance advising: 'Trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women's facilities.' Ms Reindorf's words came as the NHS Confederation, which represents hospital trusts, scrapped its old guidance allowing transgender patients to use the toilets of the sex they identify with. A spokesman for the NHS Confederation said their old guidance is now 'dated' and requires updating to align with the Supreme Court ruling. The two developments will be seen as a major blow to transgender activists, who have been petitioning for public organisations such as the NHS to ignore the court's decision. The Girl Guides and Refuge, the largest domestic abuse charity for women, have both said they have no intention in changing their policy on allowing trans women to use their female facilities. Ms Reindorf described their approach as ridiculous, arguing it amounted to a 'huge farce'. She said transgender people 'have been lied to and there has to be a period of correction'. She added: 'The fact is that, until now, trans people without Gender Recognition Certificates, were being grievously misled about their legal rights. 'The correction of self-ID policies and practices will inevitably feel like a loss of rights for trans people. 'This unfortunate position is overwhelmingly a product of the misinformation which was systematically disseminated over a long period by lobby groups and activists.'
