Louisiana puts man to death in its first nitrogen gas execution, his lawyer says

ANGOLA, La. (AP) — Louisiana used nitrogen gas to put a man to death Tuesday evening for a killing decades ago, marking the first time the state has used the method as it resumed executions after a 15-year hiatus.

Jessie Hoffman Jr., 46, declined to give a final statement before the gas began flowing and he subsequently was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Authorities said the nitrogen gas flowed for 19 minutes during what one official called a “flawless” execution, although one witness spoke of the inmate convulsing during the process.

It was the fifth time nitrogen gas was used in the U.S. after four executions by the same method — all in Alabama. Three other executions, by lethal injection, are scheduled this week — in Arizona on Wednesday and in Florida and Oklahoma on Thursday.

Hoffman was convicted of the murder of Mary “Molly” Elliott, a 28-year-old advertising executive who was killed in New Orleans. At the time of the crime, Hoffman was 18 and has since spent much of his adult life at the penitentiary in rural southeast Louisiana, where he was executed Tuesday evening.

After court battles earlier this month, attorneys for Hoffman had turned to the Supreme Court in last-ditch hopes of halting the execution. Last year, the court declined to intervene in the nation's first nitrogen hypoxia execution, in Alabama.

Hoffman’s lawyers had unsuccessfully argued that the nitrogen gas procedure — which deprives a person of oxygen — violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The man’s lawyers, in a last-ditch appeal, also argued the method would infringe on Hoffman’s freedom to practice religion, specifically his Buddhist breathing and meditation in the moments leading up to death.

Louisiana officials maintained the method is painless. They also said it was past time for the state to deliver justice as promised to victims’ families after a decade and a half hiatus — one brought on partly by an inability to secure lethal injection drugs.

The Supreme Court voted 5-4 in declining to step in. A court statement said four justices would have blocked the execution. Justice Neil Gorsuch explained in a brief dissent that he thought Hoffman should get a chance to press his religious freedom claim in a lower court. The three liberal justices did not explain their votes.

Hours earlier at a hearing, 19th Judicial District Court Judge Richard “Chip” Moore also declined to stop the execution. He sided with the state's lawyers who had argued the man’s religion-based arguments fell under the jurisdiction of a federal judge who had already ruled on them, according to local news outlets.

Under the Louisiana protocol, which is nearly identical to Alabama's, officials had earlier said Hoffman would be strapped to a gurney before a full-face respirator mask fitted tightly on him. Pure nitrogen gas was then pumped into the mask, forcing him to breathe it in and depriving him of the oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions.

The protocol called for the gas to be administered for at least 15 minutes or five minutes after the inmate’s heart rate reaches a flatline indication on the EKG, whichever is longer.

Each inmate put to death using nitrogen in Alabama had appeared to shake and gasp to varying degrees during their executions, according to media witnesses, including an Associated Press reporter. Alabama state officials said the reactions were involuntary movements associated with oxygen deprivation.

Alabama first used the lethal gas to put Kenneth Eugene Smith to death last year, marking the first time a new method had been used in the U.S. since lethal injection was introduced in 1982.

Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma specifically authorize execution by nitrogen hypoxia, according to records compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center. Arkansas was added to the list on Tuesday.

Seeking to resume executions, Louisiana's GOP-dominated Legislature expanded the state's approved death penalty methods last year to include nitrogen hypoxia and electrocution. Lethal injection was already in place.

On Tuesday, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed legislation allowing executions using nitrogen gas, making hers the fifth state to adopt the method. Arkansas currently has 25 people on death row.

Over recent decades, the number of executions nationally has declined sharply amid legal battles, a shortage of lethal injection drugs and waning public support for capital punishment. That has led a majority of states to either abolish or pause carrying out the death penalty.

On Tuesday afternoon, a small group of execution opponents held a vigil outside the rural southeast Louisiana prison at Angola, where the state’s executions are carried out. Some passed out prayer cards with photos of a smiling Hoffman and planned a Buddhist reading and “Meditation for Peace.”

Attorney General Liz Murrill said she expects at least four people to be executed this year in Lousiana. Ahead of Hoffman’s execution, she said “justice will finally be served” by putting him to death.