Louisiana prepares first execution using nitrogen gas after 15-year pause

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18-03-2025

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 stopped 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.
Hoffman's is one of four executions planned in the United States this week, including one in Arizona, which is scheduled to put an inmate to death by lethal injection for the first time since 2022.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com