A death row inmate is set to be the first in a US state to be executed using a nitrogen gas method that is banned for euthanizing cats and dogs.
Jessie Hoffman Jr, 46, will be Louisiana’s first execution in 15 years on Tuesday evening after a judge declined his last-minute plea to halt it. The man convicted of raping and murdering a 28-year-old accounting executive will be only the fifth inmate to be executed using the controversial method.
Hoffman’s lawyers argued that nitrogen gassing violates the US Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment. Furthermore, they claimed it infringes on his religious freedom to practice Buddhist breathing and meditation before being put to death.
Louisiana state law prohibits nitrogen hypoxia in pet euthanasia, and the method has only been used four times in Alabama.
It involves strapping an individual to a gurney and placing a respirator mask covering the face fully. Pure nitrogen gas is released from the mask, cutting off oxygen. The gas is applied for at least 15 minutes or five minutes after the heart rate shows a flatline.
Officials in Louisiana have argued that nitrogen gassing in painless and that justice has been waiting to be served to the family since the 1996 murder of Mary ‘Molly’ Elliott.
Hoffman was 18 years old and worked at a Sheraton hotel garage in the French Quarter of New Orleans when Elliott walked in after work and he kidnapped her at gunpoint. He forced her to take $200 out of an ATM and then drive to a remote area as she begged him to let her go uninjured.
Prosecutors say Hoffman raped Elliott and made her get out of the vehicle and walk down a dump area dirt path.
‘Her death march ultimately ended at a small, makeshift dock at the end of this path, where she was forced to kneel and shot in the head, execution style,’ stated prosecutors.
Elliott’s naked body was found on Thanksgiving Day.
Hoffman’s lawyer, Cecelia Kappel, said he has taken ‘full responsibility’ for the crime and feels great remorse.
‘He is so sorry to the family of Molly Elliott and he wishes to have opportunity before he dies to have a face-to-face conversation where he can apologize in person,’ Kappel told USA Today.
The last inmate to be executed by nitrogen gassing was Kenneth Eugene Smith in late January. Smith, who was convicted in a 1988 murder-for-hire killing of a preacher’s wife, had survived an attempted lethal injection execution two years prior.
Four states allow nitrogen hypoxia executions: Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma.
Hoffman is scheduled to be executed at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola. He would be the seventh death row inmate to be executed in the US this year.
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