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Louisiana puts Jessie Hoffman death

Louisiana puts Jessie Hoffman death

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  • The inmate of the death corridor, Jessie Hoffman, was convicted of the brutal rape and murder of Molly Elliott, 28, in 1996. She had kidnapped her in New Orleans after she left work.
  • Hoffman has been arguing that he should not be executed by nitrogen gas because he violates his religious freedoms.
  • Molly Elliott’s husband told USA Today that he was in favor of Hoffman’s execution if he was not delayed further, but said he would not bring the closure.

Louisiana executed an inmate of the death corridor using nitrogen gas for the first time in the history of the state and only the fifth time in the history of the United States.

The execution of the Demine inmate Jessie Hoffman He is the first in Louisiana in 15 years after the State fought to get drugs for lethal injections. Hoffman was declared dead at 6:50 pm after an “impeccable” execution, according to Gary Westcott, secretary of the Department of Security and Public Corrections of Louisiana.

Hoffman, who was convicted of the brutal rape and murder of 28 years Molly Elliott In 1996, he had been arguing that he should not be executed by nitrogen gas, a controversial method and largely not proven, partly because he said he raped his religious freedom by preventing his Buddhist meditative breathing from practicing.

Last week, a federal judge temporarily stopped Hoffman’s executionciting possible “pain and torture” in violation of their constitutional rights. He Appeals Court of the 5th United States Circuit He voree Friday’s ruling. Hoffman’s lawyers appealed and on Tuesday before the execution, the United States Supreme Court refused to stop him in a limited decision.

Until Tuesday, only a state, AlabamaHe had used nitrogen gas to kill inmates. The State made history last year with its First execution of this typeAnd he has performed three others using nitrogen gas since then.

“Tonight, justice was served for Molly Elliot and the state of Louisiana,” said Attorney General Liz Murrill at a press conference after Hoffman’s execution. “Now he faces his final judgment. Judgment before God.”

Hoffman’s lawyer, Cecelia Kappel, said in a statement that the execution had no “sense” and that “we are better than this.”

“He was a father, a husband and a man who showed an extraordinary capacity for redemption,” Kappel said. “Jessie no longer resembled the 18 -year -old who killed Molly Elliott.”

This is what he should know about the execution of Hoffman, including more about the nearby decision of the Supreme Court and how Elliott’s family feels about execution 29 years after losing the brilliant young woman.

Witnesses describe execution

Hoffman rejected a last meal and said no last word before nitrogen gas began to flow around 6:21 pm, according to execution witnesses they talked to a press conference. The gas flowed for about 19 minutes, five minutes after state officials say it was planned.

Hoffman was tied to a stretcher, and everyone but his head and forearms were covered by a thick blanket, they said.

“He moved. He shook very briefly,” said Seth Smith, head of Operations of the Department of Security and Public Corrections of Louisiana. “Around 6:23 had some convulsive activity … after that, personally I saw nothing that would say it is consistent with pain. He, in essence, was clinically dead very fast.”

One of the two witnesses of the media, Gina Swanson with WDSU-TVHe said he saw Hoffman Twitch, squeeze his fists and his idiot body, but said “it was something clinical.”

“There was nothing really unpleasant that made me feel like,” well, that didn’t go well, “he said.

Is that really true? Register For USA Today, check the data bulletin to obtain all the answers.

What did Jessie Hoffman do?

Molly Elliott left the work in her advertising firm in the French neighborhood of New Orleans around 5 PM of November 27, 1996, and walked to the Sheraton hotel garage, where she parked her car. She was supposed to meet her husband in her office at 6 pm so that they could go to dinner together, police told journalists at that time.

Hoffman, who was only 18 years old and had worked in the garage for about two weeks, kidnapped her at gunpoint and forced her to remove around $ 200 from an ATM, Prosecutors said. Even if Hoffman had let her go at that time, prosecutors said she would have been “the most horrible night of her life.”

“The ATM video tape shows the terror in Mrs. Elliott’s face as she withdrew money from her account, and you can see Hoffman standing next to her victim,” prosecutors said in the judicial records.

After obtaining the cash, Hoffman forced Elliott to lead to a remote area of ​​St. Tammany’s parish while begging him not to hurt her, prosecutors said, citing Hoffman’s eventual confession to the crime. Hoffman then raped Elliott and forced her to leave the car and walk on a dirt road in an area used as a garbage dump, prosecutors said.

“His death march finally ended up on a small and improvised dock at the end of this road, where he was forced to kneel and shoot in the head, execution style,” they said. “Mrs. Elliott probably survived for a few minutes after she shot, but stayed at the dock, completely naked on a cold November night, to die.”

Her husband identified her body after she was found on Thanksgiving, prosecutors said.

Hoffman’s lawyer, Cecelia Kappel, told USA Today that she recognized the crime and was deeply repentant.

More about the nitrogen gas method, judicial decisions

Last week, the main district judge Shelly Dick temporarily blocked Hoffman’s execution, saying that he could cause “pain and terror” and that he showed a “substantial probability” to demonstrate that gas nitrogen executions violate the prohibition of the eighth amendment against cruel and unusual punishment.

Dick cited stories of Alabama’s four executions that “describe suffering, including conscious terror for several minutes, trembling, panting and other anguish tests.” The witnesses observed the bodies of the inmates “twisting” under their restrictions “, convulsing and trembling vigorous for four minutes,” stirring, spitting and a “conscious struggle for life.”

Alabama’s attorney general Steve Marshall, has defended the method as “constitutional and effective”, and the attorney general of Louisiana, Liz Murrill, has argued in the judicial records that witnesses accounts of the members of the media are not reliable.

He 5th Court of Appeals of the United States Circuit He voree Dick’s decision on Friday. The matter went to the United States Supreme Court, which allowed the execution to advance in a 5-4 decision.

The three liberal members of the court and Judge Neil Gorsuch said they would have granted the Hoffman application for an execution suspension. Gorsuch said that the lower courts did not properly review Hoffman’s statement that the method would interfere with his meditative breathing while he dies, violating his right to practice his Buddhist religion.

“No one has questioned the sincerity of Mr. Hoffman’s religious beliefs,” Gorsuch wrote. However, the District Court rejected Hoffman’s argument anyway, based on his own finding about the type of breathing his faith, Gorsuch continued.

But the courts, he said, cannot decide how a religion should be followed.

Gorsuch said he would have stopped the execution and ordered the Court of Appeals to review the claim of Hoffman’s religious freedom.

What does Molly Elliott’s family say?

Molly Elliott’s husband, Andy Elliott, told the USA Today on Tuesday that Hoffman’s execution was “bittersweet news.”

“There is a relief that this long nightmare is finally over, but also renewed the pain by Molly and the sadness for Mr. Hoffman’s family, whose nightmare began when mine and that they also had to go through almost 30 years of this heartbreaking process without guilt,” he said.

He added that he hopes that the case of Hoffman can help “to cause a significant change” to the death penalty because “a long wait for multiple decades is not only difficult for all involved, but also seriously breaks the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent on crime.” “On the one hand, I am satisfied that justice has finally served so that we can all try to advance with our lives,” he said. “On the other hand, if the death penalty will exist, the process must be resolved within a reasonable period of time.” In a statement before USA Today, he said that his wife “was an appreciated person who lost motherhood, a promising and successful career, and a useful life in the country on the property we bought together.”

“His was a life full of hope and promise for a beautiful future,” he said. “Molly’s loss is a scar that we will carry forever, and will never heal.”

‘I miss her a lot’: Remembering Molly Elliott, murdered by Louisiana Death Row, inmate

More executions to come in us

Three other executions, all by lethal injection, are also scheduled this week in ArizonaOklahoma and Florida. At least 11 more executions are scheduled for the rest of the year, but this number is expected to increase as states issue more death orders.

The states have been seeking to expand their execution methods, since lethal injection medications have become more difficult to obtain.

Alabama became the first state of the nation To use the nitrogen gas method last year. It is also legal in Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma. And on Tuesday, the governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, signed a bill To use the method in your state. Ohio and Nebraska They have reintroduced similar legislation this year.

In South Carolina earlier this month, Brad Keith Sigmon was Executed by a shooting squadThe first execution of this type in the United States since 2010 and only the fourth since 1977.

Hoffman had been arguing that a shooting squad would have been a preferable method of execution for nitrogen gas. Louisiana imposed the nitrogen gas method, while Alabama’s four inmates chose the gas method on lethal injection and the electric chair.

Contributing: Maureen Groppe and N’dea Yancey-Bragg, USA today

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