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By Khaleda Rahman
National Correspondent
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Advocates for a death-row inmate in Louisiana have applauded a federal judge's decision to halt his execution using nitrogen gas.
U.S. District Court Judge Shelly Dick issued a preliminary injunction on Tuesday, stopping the state from immediately moving forward with Jessie Hoffman Jr.'s execution, which would have been the state's first in 15 years and the first ever using nitrogen gas. Attorney General Liz Murrill has said the state will immediately appeal the decision.
"We are grateful that the district court carefully considered all of the evidence presented and recognized the significant risks to Jessie Hoffman's constitutional rights posed by Louisiana's new and untested lethal gas execution method," Hoffman's attorney Cecelia Kappel said in a statement provided to Newsweek.
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Why It Matters
Louisiana's move to resume executions using nitrogen hypoxia follows other conservative-led states that have turned to alternative methods after being hampered by difficulties obtaining lethal injection drugs.
Dick's ruling came a week before Hoffman, 46, was set to be executed at the Louisiana State Penitentiary on March 18. He was convicted of the 1996 murder of 28-year-old Mary Elliott in New Orleans. In February, he filed a lawsuit against the state to block his March 18 execution date.
Hoffman has not challenged his conviction or death sentence, but has sought to be executed by firing squad or a drug cocktail known as DDMAPh. Nitrogen hypoxia, lethal injection and electrocution are the only available methods of execution in Louisiana. The nation's first execution by firing squad in 15 years took place in South Carolina on Friday.
What To Know
In February, Hoffman filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of nitrogen hypoxia as Louisiana's chosen method of execution. Attorneys for Hoffman argued during a hearing last week that it violates the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
But attorneys for the state argued the method has been successful in Alabama and rejected the idea that it would subject Hoffman to unconstitutional pain. At last week's hearing, state officials described Louisiana's execution protocol as almost identical to Alabama's, The Associated Press reported.
In her ruling, Dick said Hoffman has shown a "substantial likelihood" of proving that nitrogen hypoxia executions violate the Eighth Amendment.
But she noted that it is not a question of whether Hoffman will be executed, but how.
"Louisiana has no readily available electric chair and cannot get the drugs needed for lethal injection," she wrote.
"The only viable alternatives appear to be nitrogen hypoxia and firing squad. The State's desire for swiftness does not prevail over well-informed deliberation."
Dick noted that accounts from all four nitrogen hypoxia executions that have been carried out in Alabama since January 2024 "describe suffering, including conscious terror for several minutes, shaking, gasping, and other evidence of distress.
She wrote that witnesses to those executions observed "violent writhing of the entire body under the straps... vigorous convulsing and shaking for four minutes, repeated gasping while conscious, minutes of conscious struggling for life, heaving and spitting, two minutes of shaking and trembling."
Dick concluded that it is in the public's interest to halt the execution until the matter can "be resolved at a trial on the merits" and that the injunction does not dissolve the public interest when it prevents "the violation of constitutional rights."
What People Are Saying
Cecelia Kappel, Hoffman's attorney, said in her statement to Newsweek: "This order gives everyone a chance to have a full trial on the merits before Jessie is executed, and we look forward to the opportunity to continue presenting the court with evidence proving that this method risks inflicting torture on Jessie at the time of his death."
Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood, who has served as a spiritual adviser to dozens of death row inmates, told Newsweek that the judge "has heard the cries of those of us who have actually witnessed a nitrogen hypoxia execution. Let there be no doubt, nitrogen hypoxia is one of the cruelest and most unusual forms of punishment to ever exist."
Attorney General Liz Murrill wrote on X: "We disagree with the district court's decision and will immediately appeal to the Fifth Circuit."
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said in a statement in February: "For too long, Louisiana has failed to uphold the promises made to victims of our State's most violent crimes; but that failure of leadership by previous administrations is over. The time for broken promises has ended; we will carry out these sentences and justice will be dispensed."
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement after the state's second nitrogen hypoxia execution in September that the state "proved once again that nitrogen hypoxia is both humane and effective."
What's Next
Dick's ruling halted Hoffman's execution until the matter can "be resolved at a trial on the merits," though Murrill has said the state will appeal the decision.
Murrill told the AP in February that she expects at least four executions to take place in the state this year. There are around 60 people on death row in Louisiana.
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