Angola, the. Louisiana Used nitrogen gas To kill a man on Tuesday night for a murder decades ago, marking the first time the State has used the method since it resumed executions after a 15 -year parenthesis.
Jessie Hoffman Jr., 46, was declared dead at 6:50 pm in the penitentiary of the state of Louisiana, the authorities said, and added that the nitrogen gas had fluid for 19 minutes during what an official was characterized as an “impeccable” execution.
The witnesses of the execution said that Hoffman seemed to shake involuntarily or had “some convulsive activity.” But the three witnesses who spoke, including two members of the media, agreed that, according to the protocol and what they learned about the execution method, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
The witness Gina Swanson, a WDSU reporter, described the execution from her point of view as “clinical” and “procedure”. She said there was nothing that happened during the process that made her think: “Was it okay?
Hoffman refused to make a final statement in the execution chamber. He also rejected a final meal.
It was the fifth time that nitrogen gas was used in the US. After four executions for the same method, All in Alabama. Three Other executions, By lethal injection, they are scheduled this week, in Arizona on Wednesday and Florida and Oklahoma on Thursday.
Hoffman was convicted of Mary “Molly” Elliott, a 28 -year -old advertising executive who was killed in New Orleans. At the time of crime, Hoffman was 18 years old and since then he has spent much of his adult life in the penitentiary in the southeast rural of southeastern Louisiana, where he was executed Tuesday night.
After Judicial battles earlier this monthHoffman’s lawyers had appealed to the Supreme Court with the last hope of stopping the execution. Last year, the Court declined to intervene in the first execution of nitrogen hypoxia of the nation, in Alabama.
Hoffman’s lawyers had argued without success that the nitrogen gas procedure, which deprives an oxygen person, violates the prohibition of the eighth amendment on cruel and unusual punishment. The lawyers of man, in a last appeal, also argued that the method would violate Hoffman’s freedom to practice religion, specifically his Buddhist breathing and meditation in the moments before death.
Louisiana officials maintained the method is painless. They also said it was time for the State to give justice as promised to the families of the victims after a decade and a half pause, one brought in part by an inability to ensure lethal injects.
The Supreme Court voted 5-4 in the decrease in intervening.
Hours before at a hearing on Tuesday, a judge of the Richard Judicial District Court “Chip” Moore also refused to stop the execution. He agreed with the State’s lawyers who had argued that the arguments based on the religion of man fell under the jurisdiction of a federal judge who had already ruled on them, according to local media.
Under the Louisiana protocol, which is almost identical to that of Alabama, the authorities had previously said that Hoffman would be tied to a stretcher before a full -faced respirator mask is strongly adjusted to him. Pure nitrogen gas was pumped to the mask, which forced him to breathe and deprive it of oxygen necessary to maintain bodily functions.
The protocol requested that the gas be administered for at least 15 minutes or five minutes after the heart rate of the inmate reaches a flat line indication in the EKG, which is longer.
Two witnesses of the media on Tuesday’s execution said that Hoffman was covered with a gray plush blanket from the neck down. In the camera with Hoffman was his spiritual advisor. Before the execution and after the curtains were closed to the observation room, the witnesses said they could hear Buddhists sing.
The gas began to flow at 6:21 PM and Hoffman began to throw, witnesses said. His hands squeezed and had a “mild head movement.” Swanson said he watched the blanket closely over Hoffman’s chest area and could see that he got up and fell, indicating that he was breathing. She said her last visible breath seemed to be at 6:37 pm shortly after, the curtains between the camera and the witness display room closed. When they reopened, Hoffman was declared dead.
Seth Smith, Head of Operations of the Department of Public Security and Corrections of Louisiana, witnessed the execution and also recognized the movements of Hoffman. Smith, who has a medical history, said he perceived that seizures were an “involuntary response to die” and that Hoffman seemed to be unconscious at that time.
Each inmate killed death using Nitrogen in Alabama seemed to shake and gasp for different degrees during their executions, according to media witnesses, including a reporter of Associated Press. Alabama state officials said the reactions were involuntary movements associated with oxygen deprivation.
Alabama first used nitrogen gas to put Kenneth Eugene Smith Until death last year, marking the first time a new method had been used in the USA. Since the lethal injection was introduced in 1982.
Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma specifically authorize the execution by nitrogen hypoxia, according to the records compiled by the death penalty information center. Arkansas was added to the list on Tuesday.
Seeking to resume executions, the Legislature dominated by the Republican Party of Louisiana expanded the approved death penalty methods of the State Last year it will include hypoxia and nitrogen electrocution. The lethal injection was already in place.
On Tuesday, the governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, signed legislation allowing executions using nitrogen gasmaking his own the fifth state to adopt the method. Arkansas currently has 25 people in the death corridor.
In recent decades, the number of executions nationwide has decreased abruptly amid legal battles, a shortage of lethal inject drugs and reduced public support for capital punishment. That has led most states to abolish or pause to carry out the death penalty.
On Tuesday afternoon, a small group of execution opponents celebrated a vigil outside the rural prison of southeastern Louisiana in Angola, where state executions are carried out. Some fainted cards with photos of a smiling Hoffman and planned a Buddhist reading and “peace meditation.”
The attorney general of Louisiana, Liz Murrill, said he hopes that at least four people will be executed this year in the State. After Hoffman’s execution, he said that justice had been delayed for too long and now Hoffman “faces the final judgment, the judgment before God.”
