BATON ROUGE, La. — On the day that Louisiana’s first execution in 15 years is scheduled to take place, attorneys for the inmate are hoping for a last-minute court ruling to halt the death penalty from being carried out.
Jessie Hoffman Jr., 46, is scheduled to be put to death Tuesday evening using nitrogen gas, which would be the first time Louisiana has ever used the method. Nitrogen gas has been used just four other times to execute a person on death row in the United States, all in Alabama — which is the only other state where there is a protocol for the specific method.
Hoffman’s attorneys say the method is unconstitutional, violating the Eighth Amendment that prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. They also say that it infringes on Hoffman’s freedom to practice religion, specifically his Buddhist breathing and meditation in the moments leading up to his death.
Louisiana officials say that it is past time for the state to deliver justice that was promised to the families of the victims, after a decade and a half hiatus on executions. Attorney General Liz Murrill says that she expects at least four people on Louisiana’s death row to be executed this year.
Following court battles earlier this month, attorneys for Hoffman are turning to the United States Supreme Court to halt the execution. However, last year the court declined to intervene in the nation’s first nitrogen hypoxia death row execution.
On Monday, Hoffman’s attorneys filed a slew of additional challenges in state and federal courts as a last-ditch effort to stop the execution. A state judge will consider one of the new challenges on Tuesday morning. But with the hearing taking place just hours before Hoffman is scheduled to be put to death, attorneys will face a race against the clock.
The 19th Judicial District Court judge issued a temporary restraining order — preventing the state from executing Hoffman — “pending” a morning hearing. Attorneys for Hoffman and the state say their understanding is that the restraining order, as it stands, expires at 10:30 a.m. (EST). However the execution is scheduled to occur in the evening, hours after the order expires.
Murrill said that she expects the execution to go forward as planned and that “justice will finally be served.” Hoffman was convicted of the 1996 murder of Mary “Molly” Elliott, a 28-year-old advertising executive, in New Orleans.
Under Louisiana protocol, which is nearly identical to Alabama’s, Hoffman will be strapped to a gurney and have a full-face respirator mask — similar to what is used by painters and sandblasters — fitted tightly on him. Pure nitrogen gas will then be pumped into the mask, forcing him to breathe it in and depriving him of the oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions.
The nitrogen gas will be administered for at least 15 minutes or five minutes after his heart rate reaches a flatline indication on the EKG, whichever is longer.
The state has maintained that the method is seemingly painless. Hoffman’s attorneys argue that the method is torturous.
Each inmate put to death using nitrogen in Alabama has appeared to shake and gasp to varying degrees during their executions, according to media witnesses, including AP. The reactions are involuntary movements associated with oxygen deprivation, state officials have said.
Currently, four states — Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma — specifically authorize execution by nitrogen hypoxia, according to records compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center.
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.
In an effort to resume executions, Louisiana’s GOP-dominated Legislature expanded the state’s approved death penalty methods last year to include nitrogen hypoxia and electrocution. Already in place was lethal injection.
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.
Hoffman is scheduled to be the seventh death row execution in the country this year.