Louisiana puts man to death in US state’s first nitrogen gas execution
Jessie Hoffman Jr was executed over the murder of Mary ‘Molly’ Elliott in 1996.
The US state of Louisiana has used nitrogen gas to put a man to death for a murder committed 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, was pronounced dead at 6.50pm local time (11.50pm GMT) at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, authorities said, adding the nitrogen gas had flowed for 19 minutes during what one official characterised as a “flawless” execution.
Witnesses to the execution said Hoffman appeared to involuntarily shake or had “some convulsive activity”.
But the three witnesses who spoke – including two members of the media – agreed that, based on the protocol and what they learned about the execution method, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
She said there was nothing that occurred during the process that made her think: “Was that right? Was that how it was supposed to go?”
Hoffman declined to make a final statement in the execution chamber. He also declined a final meal.
It was the fifth time nitrogen gas was used in the US 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 in 1996.
At the time of the crime, Hoffman was 18 and has since spent much of his adult life in a prison in rural south-east Louisiana, where he was executed on Tuesday evening.
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.
On Tuesday, Arkansas governor 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.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said she expects at least four people to be executed this year in the state.
Following Hoffman’s execution, she said justice had been delayed for far too long, and now Hoffman ”faces the ultimate judgment, the judgment before God”.
