BATON ROUGE — A federal judge has temporarily blocked Louisiana’s first nitrogen gas execution, which was scheduled for next week.
Jessie Hoffman Jr., 46, argued that the use of a mask to administer only nitrogen gas while depriving him of oxygen “substantially burdens” his ability to engage in his Buddhist breathing practices. He also contended that the execution method, known as nitrogen hypoxia, is cruel and unusual punishment under the U.S. Constitution.
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Hoffman’s execution is scheduled for March 18. If carried out, it would be the first execution in the state using nitrogen hypoxia and the first execution in Louisiana in 15 years. The state legislature legalized nitrogen gas as an execution method last year. Executions had been on hold after lethal injection, the previously used method, became nearly impossible due to states’ inability to obtain the necessary drugs.
Chief U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick of the Middle District of Louisiana ruled partially in Hoffman’s favor, stating that it is in the “best interests of the public” to fully examine the state’s “newly proposed method of execution on a fully developed record.” She expressed concern that the state had released only a redacted protocol to the public until the day before Friday’s preliminary injunction hearing.
“The public has paramount interest in a legal process that enables thoughtful and well-informed deliberations, particularly when the ultimate fundamental right, the right to life, is placed in the government’s hands,” she wrote. The judge also wrote that Hoffman has shown a “substantial likelihood” of proving that nitrogren gas executions violate his Eigth Amendment right.
Attorney General Liz Murrill said she disagreed with the court’s decision and would immediately appeal to the Fifth Circuit.
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Hoffman was 18 when he was convicted of abducting a woman at gunpoint from a New Orleans parking garage, forcing her to withdraw $200 from an ATM, raping her, and then shooting and killing her.
He testified at a hearing last week that he began practicing Buddhism in 2002.
Alabama became the first state to carry out an execution using nitrogen hypoxia, administering the method to four death row inmates in the past year, most recently last month. Judge Dick cited accounts from all four of those executions that “describe suffering, including conscious terror for several minutes, shaking, gasping, and other evidence of distress.”
Alabama has defended the method as “constitutional and effective.”
Hoffman had asked the court for the method of execution to be by firing squad, similar to a method carried out in South Carolina last week, but that method is not currently legal in Louisiana.
Louisiana hasn’t put anyone to death since 2010, when Gerald Bordelon waived his right to appeals and received a lethal injection for the 2002 rape and murder of his 12-year-old stepdaughter, Courtney LeBlanc.
The state currently has more than 50 people on death row.
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